Mykola Tomenko: The Law on the Local Elections will be amended on September, 7
In the program at Channel 5 on August 19, 2010, Mykola Tomenko, Deputy Chairman of The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, stated that the Law on the Local Elections would be amended on September 7.
"The ‘normative-technical´ amendments will obviously be introduced to support the elections. It concerns the division into districts, organization of commissions, and vote count", the Deputy Chairman stated. M.Tomenko stressed that these amendments could be introduced and could come into force before the launch of the election campaign.
However, he stated that "there is a certain scheme, as the summer discussions imply the possibility of introducing two amendments supported by the experts and the opposition, but disputed by the authorities."
The Deputy Chairman of The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine admitted the probability of abolishing the restriction for the political parties that allowed participation of only those parties that had been registered at least 365 days prior to the elections. Moreover, the right for the political blocs to participate in the election campaign may also be restored.
As to the first regulation, M.Tomenko stated: "The authorities would like to boost competition between the opposition parties at the local level: participation of the ‘young parties´ is useful to prevent strengthening of one of the opposition parties."
As to the restoration of the right for the political blocs to participate in the local elections this year, the Deputy Chairman explained this idea with the analysis of the situation in the central and western regions of Ukraine, where a low support of the Party of Regions is observed. Therefore, formation of the blocs would allow the local authorities and lobbying power to attract non-affiliated persons to form local pro-authority coalitions.