National and international institutions gave Ukraine 17 top priority recommendations concerning the electoral reform, but Ukraine has implemented only one, particularly obstruction-free registration and activities of official observers. The rest of 16 recommendations were either partially realized, or not realized at all.
Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv has started the training for 35 candidates for civic ombudsmen for protection of electoral rights on Friday, 17 August. It is conducted under the project “Electoral reform to strengthen the power of agents of change and support public dialog”, financed by European Union.
Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine announced that the renewal of Central Election Commission will be a key topic on the next week. Experts of Civil Network OPORA went to the Parliament to ask MPs what is the probability of the CEC's renewal before the elections. The MPs believe it's not likely to happen.
Human Rights Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Liudmyla Denysova and Head of the Board of Civil Network OPORA Olha Aivazovska have signed an official Cooperation Memorandum on 31 July. The Memorandum is aimed at protection of electoral rights and freedoms of citizens.
OPORA has been receiving these days information from various sources about attempts to induce CEC member Kateryna Makhnitska to appeal for early termination of her authority. Such actions can be characterized as an illegal pressure upon an official at the highest level election commission, aimed to create a vacant seat before the voting on CEC's renewal. We would like to remind that Kateryna Makhnitska was appointed in April 2014, representing AUU “Svoboda”, and her term of office expires in 2021.
The closer re-election is, the less number of draft laws is being adopted. Thus, only 12% of draft laws have been adopted over 3.5 years of parliamentary activities. Such low efficiency is accompanied by a growing “law-making tsunami”. Today, only one of eight draft laws has chances to be adopted. This information was presented by the experts of Civil Network OPORA on 12 May conference.
Civil Network OPORA calls on the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, leaders of parliamentary factions and groups to consider the issue of dismissal and appointment of new members of the CEC on an urgent basis, that is, no later than during the next plenary session scheduled for the upcoming week.
Today, the working group on the Election Code has taken into consideration amendments, which concern voter lists and statistical data of the Voter Register. The information was provided by representatives of Civil Network OPORA, who attended the meeting.
Ukrainian legislation doesn't provide any sanctions for violation of gender quota requirements in party lists. This requirement remains a mere moral obligation, and is not introduced even in the Electoral Code. This information was presented by representative of Civil Network OPORA on a meeting with non-governmental organizations, held by the Vice Prime Minister on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze and Government Commissioner for Gender Policy Kateryna Levchenko in Kyiv on 5 June.
The risk of wide-scale voter bribery in Ukraine is very high, and it's important to adopt a law introducing the corresponding sanctions. Such statement was made by Legal Advisor of the Civil Network OPORA Olha Kotsiuruba on meetings with European Parliament representatives during a two-day visit to Brussels, organized by the European Platform for Democratic Elections.
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