Verkhovna Rada approves members of Election Commission (11/16/97)

Verkhovna Rada approves members of Election Commission

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Another threat to Verkhovna Rada elections proceeding normally was overcome on November 12 when the Verkhovna Rada finally approved a sufficient number of members to the Central Election Commission to allow it to begin its work.

Last week the Ukrainian Parliament twice rejected all but six of President Leonid Kuchma's nominees, even after meetings had been held between the president's representatives and Verkhovna Rada faction leaders in the hope that the members would be elected quickly. On November 12 five additional candidates were approved, for a total of 11 members, which still leaves the CEC four short of a full complement of 15 members.

Without an election commission, the law on elections passed in September could not have been fully implemented. Only the commission has the right to realign the 450 current electoral districts into the 225 required by the new law, and to approve the candidate lists and voter petitions. It also is responsible for determining the budget for the elections, which comes from government coffers, as well as for drawing up and printing the official ballots and overseeing the actual elections.

Ivan Yemets, the outgoing director of the CEC, said after the Verkhovna Rada approved only five of the required 15 members on November 4 that "right now, nobody is working on developing the organization and making preparations for the elections."

Opponents of the president had claimed then that the president was packing the commission with his supporters and said that members of the president's administration should not take seats on the commission. In fact, three of the nine rejected candidates hold posts in the administration. The president's chief of staff, Yevhen Kushniarov, accused the Communists in the Parliament of blocking the election of the CEC by pocketing their ballots in what was a vote by secret ballot.

After two days of haggling between Parliament leaders and President Kuchma, during which the president said he would not withdraw his nominees, several of candidates were again presented for approval before the legislature. This time no additional members were selected. Only 288 of the 416 deputies registered for the day's session, chiefly because many lawmakers are preoccupied with election-year politics, which made it impossible to get the 226 majority of votes required to fill the nine vacancies to the CEC.

Finally, on November 12, after having decided to vote by computer in the routine fashion, and after the factions had mobilized their troops, 280 lawmakers gave the nod to five additional candidates.

The commission's major task immediately will be to approve the candidate lists and the voter petitions for all the parties that wish to take part in the elections. According to the new law that process must be completed 120 days prior to the elections, which are scheduled for March 29.

To be officially registered for the March 1998 elections, parties must submit petitions with the signatures of 200,000 voters, of which 10,000 must be gathered from each of 14 various oblasts.

In the new mixed electoral system, voters will make two selections. They will first choose one candidate from a list of those running outside the party system and then make a party choice, presumably based on the party's platform and their candidate list.

Of the 450 Verkhovna Rada seats, 225 will go to the individual candidates selected in each of the 225 electoral districts of Ukraine, which are to be established by the CEC as one of its first orders of business. The other 225 seats will be divided among the parties that take at least 4 percent of the vote according to the percentage of votes they receive.

The party candidate lists rank the members of each party and determine in what order the parties will seat their candidates. Individuals on party candidate lists can withdraw their names after the elections, which then allows those below them to move up a notch.

Many political parties have packed their candidate lists with celebrities in the hope that name recognition will draw voters to their slates. However, it is expected that many of the candidates will be lopped from the lists, including celebrities with no political background, after having served their purpose.

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