On Thursday, July 23, amendments to the electoral law came into force, which will be implemented in the local elections this fall.
As a reminder, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has scheduled local elections for October 25 to be held throughout the country, except for the temporarily annexed Crimea and the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
In particular, in order to improve the provisions of the Electoral Code of Ukraine, four books of the Code are amended.
The law stipulates that early local elections, interim, first, and additional elections will be held twice a year - on the last Sunday of March and the last Sunday of October. In addition, in accordance with the proposed changes to the year of the regular local elections, all local elections will be held once a year - on the day of the regular local elections, the last Sunday of October of the fifth year of the term of office of local councils and village, town, and city mayors elected at the last regular local elections.
Book Two, which defines the basic principles of organizing and conducting presidential elections in Ukraine, is amended to introduce mechanisms to combat "double-standards"; improve the procedure for the formation and functioning of election commissions; and specify certain provisions relating to the nomination and registration of candidates in local elections.
Candidates for deputies who received the number of votes equal to or exceeding 25% of the electoral quota are placed at the beginning of the territorial electoral list of the respective party organization in descending order of the number of votes that supported the respective candidate for deputy.
The NGO Integrity UA has prepared a calendar of the election process:
- July 27-August 05 - party organizations submit nominations to territorial election commissions (TECs) (oblast, rayon, city);
- August 10 - the CEC forms the composition of TECs (oblast, rayon, city);
- September 5 - start of the election process (50 days before the election day);
- September 15-24 - conferences of local organizations to nominate candidates;
- September 15 - 24: submission of documents for candidate registration;
- September 15 - 29 - TEC decisions on candidate registration;
- the next day after the decision to register candidates - the beginning of the campaign process;
- October 9 - formation of PECs;
- October 15-19 - submission of interim financial report to the TEC by the election fund managers;
- October 22 - registration of observers;
- October 23 - end of campaigning;
- October 24 - day of silence, campaigning is prohibited;
- October 25 - election day;
- October 26 - November 01 - submission of the final financial report to the TEC by the election fund managers;
- November 3 - TEC establishes the voting results.
