“Election” alarm: a signal for local communities?

What is the election? Is it still test tricks to check potential stakeholders that have the ability to influence the electoral rules? Let’s try to understand.

The Council appeared in the draft law 13464, which provides for thorough changes to the election Code of Ukraine. Interestingly, this bill has in some way caused a fuss in a very narrow circle of persons at the most uncomfortable moment, when there is tension on the front, the expectations of increasing offensive of Russians and the continuation of terrorist attacks of the Russian Federation in the peaceful cities of Ukraine.

It would seem that we have a strange attempt to raise the topic of elections, to which, by the overall impression, it seems very far, given the mood to continue the war and the inability to provide security guarantees of the electoral process in martial law.

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The situation is also spicy in the fact that the initiators of the Law of 13464 are dominated by the deputies from the Motherland, but the speaker of Parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk and the deputy chairman of the “servant of the people” faction Andriy Motovilovets are also dominated.

In order not to get tired of readers for a long time, I will give only a few of the most important changes.

The electoral system in the council. The 5% barrier for parties and two types of open election lists is stored – national and regional. But now it is suggested that the number of candidates from each election region (and there are only 25) will depend on the number of voters in it. In fact, there will be two types of votes given for a party in each specific election region: 1) votes for the party and for a specific candidate in its regional list (let us call them “personal” votes);

2) votes for the party without a specific candidate in its regional list (“constraunnal” votes). In case of overcoming the 5%Barrier, the candidate from it, which has gained the number of votes equal or exceeding the electoral quota, obviously becomes a deputy.

“Warler’s voices.” At the same time, the practice of local elections of 2020, which first passed on open lists, showed that only 35% of candidates (8 225 people) received their deputy’s mandate thanks to personal voices in districts. Everyone else became candidates at the expense of “constraunced votes”. And in the future of the next parliamentary elections, these votes will have to be taken into account to determine the number of unused seats of each party in each electoral region. The draft law paints a new procedure for ranking those candidates on regional lists that have not “fit” into an electoral quota in the region. At the same time, the order of the elected deputies will be determined by the number of voters cast for them in order of reduction. With an equal amount – the drawing procedure is introduced.

Gender quotas: in the nationwide list – at least 2 candidates of each sex in every five; Regional lists have a minimum of 30% of people of the same sex. It is an attempt to give the legislation of the “European” side to accelerate a positive reaction from international institutions, which traditionally assess the democracy of electoral legislation.

Ballots. The local elections of 2020 showed that 40% of the voters were not easy to deal with the new election bulletin with open lists. Currently, changes are proposed to unify the ballots of parliamentary and local elections. The new ballot to Parliament, for example, proposes to mark the political party number, the first nine names of the national list without numbers and all candidates of the regional list with their numbers. To the right of the party there will be two squares: the first – for “plus” for the party, the second – to designate the number of a candidate from the regional list.

The principle of “25% of the election quota” to promote candidates on the regional list can be canceled. Earlier, those candidates who received 25% of the election quota were placed at the beginning of the regional list in the order of reducing the number of voters for themselves and receiving a more guaranteed chance to become a deputy.

Total “party” elections to all local councils. It is planned to introduce a proportional election system with open lists in the elections of regional, district, city, district in the city, settlement and village councils. And this is what naturally raises the most questions. Interestingly, about a week before the emergence of the project 13464, another bill on changes to the election code was introduced in the Council – 13419 at the initiative of deputies V. Bezuin and A. Zagoruyko, which provides a proportional system for communities with more than 50 thousand voters (now more than 10 thousand).

What caused the appearance of these innovations and suggestions? There can be several reasons.

First, the real need to correct the bugs and the fault of the electoral system used during the local elections of 2020. But not so much for parliamentary elections that are very ghostly in the near future, but for local elections that should take place in the fall of 2025. Perhaps is this working option for local elections in parts of areas, districts and communities in martial law? If so, we are expected by a very risky experiment in terms of safe elections, but rumors have been going since last year.

Secondly, the emergence of amendments to the Electoral Code may testify to certain situational alliances of part of the deputies who thus want to occupy a niche in the topic of electoral rules and increase their own value before political trade for the future, because the President’s office will systematically work on the most favorable rules for the organization. And here it is noticeable that in the initiative of the law, part of the “servants of the people” is combined with the Batkivshchyna faction.

Third, through this initiative, the will actually starts the campaign to preserve open lists through their operational improvement and an attempt to knock down the initiative to change the electoral system that can suddenly emerge (from returning to the mixed system to the idea of closed lists) and to become attractive to the background.

At the same time, it is obvious that now you need to focus on the fundamental bases of elections in the post -bearing, not on the election design and cosmetic repair of suffrage. Priority issues should now be adapted, understandable and democratic voting procedures in the postwar period, and especially for four categories of population: foreign Ukrainians, internally displaced persons, existing servicemen and citizens in the occupied territories. Critical and complex problems are damaged by the election infrastructure, the voter register, the arrangement of new precincts abroad.

And in the proposed bill, the leading issues are completely different issues: gender quotas, bulletin format ends, “partization” of local councils and more.

The proposed changes are good for the inter -election cycle in a peaceful peaceful country and do not correspond to the modern realities of Ukraine’s life and calls of post -war time. Unfortunately, suffrage has always been a hostage to a narrow political situation and this trend cannot be broken even into war.

Oleg Posternak, ppOlittechnologist, Candidate of Historical Sciences

A column is a material that reflects the author’s point of view. The text of the column does not claim the objectivity and comprehensive coverage of the topic that rises in it. The editorial board of “Ukrainian Truth” is not responsible for the accuracy and interpretation of the information provided and plays only the role of the carrier. The point of view of the UP editorial board may not coincide with the point of view of the author of the column.