On August 10, a draft law amending the Election Code was registered in the Parliament. It is mainly aimed to correct technical drawbacks in the Election Code, but there is also an innovation, which raises the certain concerns.
According Senior Legal Advisor of Civil Network OPORA Olha Kotsiuruba, the draft law removes some inaccuracies that emerged as a result of the Election Code being adopted in haste. For example, mentions about the election of headmen were deleted; oblast and raion councils have returned into the article regulating the local self-government system in the Law of Ukraine on Local Self-Government; the issue when the candidate's autobiography does not contain the obligatory information was resolved, stating the information must be included in the information poster, booklet and ballot; it was determined that a complaint lacking electronic signature will not be accepted; the price for campaign materials was increased to UAH 63.06.
"In general, the draft law corrects the certain technical drawbacks in the Election Code, but there is also an innovation that raises the certain concerns. Local party cell in a city, which is included in raions, and now it's all cities of oblast significance, can nominate candidates to the corresponding city council only in case there was no such nomination from raion cell. For example, Lviv city cell of a political party cannot nominate candidates to Lviv City Council, if the radon-level organization has already done this,"- Olha Kotsiuruba explained.
Legal Advisor of Civil Network OPORA Pavlo Romaniuk told what will change for candidates, parties and voters. In particular, some non-standard variation of completing new ballots are suggested to count as valid.