Tell us who we’re electing

The Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU) has pointed to inadequate information regarding candidates in the elections and the risk that the work of the Central Election Commission will be blocked.

At a press conference on Friday 10 August the Head of the CVU Board Ihor Popov reported some of the findings from the Committee’s monitoring of the beginning of the election campaign.

He said that the Central Election Commission )CEC) was presently unable to approve a model application for home voting since the Commission’s members could not agree on voters providing documents confirming their inability to vote at a polling station.  For this reason, given the experience of previous election campaigns, the CVU considers that such “home voting” could become a means for vote rigging and calls on the CEC to agree norms by which voters can declare that they cannot get to a polling station.

Mr Popov also stated that the CVU cannot exclude the possibility that problems will arise in forming district electoral commissions due in the first instance to the lack of time for preparation. He nonetheless said that they hoped all would pass without obstruction.

The CVU is, at the same time concerned that in eastern regions of the country, the heads of the commissions may be members of the Party of the Regions, while in western regions their opponents might head the commission, despite the requirement for parity.

They also call for political parties to place biographies of candidates for National Deputy and information about their income in party publications and on party websites accessible to the public.

According to CVU information candidates have been put forward by political forces in free and open fashion and no obstructions to holding the congresses have been recorded. However the procedure for discussing and placing candidates on the lists remains insufficiently democratic and members of the parties, as well as the general voter, do not have enough information about people being put forward.

The CVU also expresses concern that the campaigning is going on even at times when official election campaigning is prohibited, and public officials are taking part in it during working hours.

They also consider that the beginning of the BYuT [Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko] campaign for a referendum on changes to the Constitution is unacceptable since in the present legal conditions it is impossible to carry out all procedure for holding a referendum before 30 September 2007.