CVU criticizes hasty efforts to change electoral legislation

Head of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine [CVU], Oleksandr Chernenko does not believe that the amendments to the Law on the Presidential elections, passed by parliament in their first reading would be capable of stopping vote rigging.

The changes proposed by Party of the Regions National Deputy Oleksandr Lavrynovych were supported by the smallest possible majority – 226.  As reported, the draft law (No. 6004) proposes to remove the requirement of a quorum of two thirds of the members of electoral commissions to make sure that the electoral commissions can work “so as to prevent disruption of the elections by one of the parties”.

Mr Chernenko believes that any attempts by politicians to make changes to electoral legislation are efforts to legislatively weaken their rivals under the pretext of preventing rigging. He is convinced that amendments on reducing the quorum for electoral commissions will not be able to prevent attempts to destabilize their work.

The problem is not in a legislative norm

“It is not the norm of the law that you need to fight, but the wish of certain politicians to unlawfully influence the electoral process”. He fears that amendments on the eve of voting would only confuse members of commissions, and points out that all missions of European observers advised against changing legislation on the eve of the second round of voting.

In fact, a scandal is already brewing over the passing of those amendments even in their first reading. Oleksandr Bobilyov, National Deputy from Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defence claims that somebody used his card to vote for the amendments when he was not even present. He is threatening to withdraw his vote which would be enough for the draft law to not pass its first reading.

From a report at http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5178681,00.html