Documents

The Committee of Voters in Ukraine (CVU)  found no systemic violations during E-Day. Those violations that were recorded included violations of voting procedures by the members of the precinct election commissions, inaccuracy of the voter lists, illegal campaigning, and photographing of the filled-in ballots by voters.

The Presidential elections in Ukraine are approaching fast, taking place on 31 March 2019. Issue no. 11 gives an update on recent developments regarding the Draft Election Code, which was approved by the Verkhovna Rada in the first reading in November 2017 and aims to harmonize Ukraine’s electoral legal framework by introducing a proportional electoral system with open regional party lists. 

OPORA has published its first observation report on the presidential election campaign where it has been recording the wide-scale early campaigning efforts organized by over ten potential candidates over the last few months. There remains some legal uncertainty about the character of such campaigning and there is also a problem of shadow campaign financing occuring during the official election process.

With 2019 just around the corner, Ukraine is preparing for two landmark elections next year - presidential and parliamentary elections. Issue no. 10 gives an outlook on next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections with a special focus on the lack of an effective system of legal liability for violations of the electoral law. 

The international community considered the “General elections” in Donetsk and Lugansk as illegitimate and did not send any observers to monitor them. Aiming to fill the void of legitimacy, the “authorities” of the DPR and LPR invited dozens of “international observers” from countries such as Austria, Canada, France, Italy and  Germany. None of them were transparent about the methodology they employed for observing the election processes and, therefore, violated the Code of Conduct for International Election Observers. We have identified their names and their background.

One of the key aspects of the electoral reform in Ukraine is the abolition of the parallel election system which should be replaced by a fully proportional parliamentary election system with open party lists. The application of a parallel system with a majoritarian component leads to preservation of an old political elite, thus the current parliament have no will to replace it.

Nataliia Lynnyk, Vice-Director of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU), highlighted that the coalition agreement of 2014 envisaged the transition to a proportional electoral system with open lists in Ukraine, but its approval is still critically dependant on political consensus and the existence of political will of the parliamentary coalition and the president.