Those Who Will Count Us

Last Tuesday Verkhovna Rada ratified ten out of twelve candidates for members of the Central Election Committee, presented by President Leonid Kuchma. Prior to this, the parliament officially halted the authority of the twelve former CEC members (in toto the CEC consists of fifteen members). After scrupulous consideration (at the suggestion of the Committee on State Building and Local Self-Government, every candidature was discussed separately), the CEC members were elected Valery Bondyk (279 votes), deputy of the Donetsk Oblast Rada and member of the parliamentary Committee on Deputies’ Activity and Ethics, Legal Policy, and Law and Order; Yaroslav Davydovych (358 votes for and one against); CEC Secretary; Yury Donchenko (308 for), People’s Deputy from the Communist Party in the second and third convocations of Verkhovna Rada; Valentyna Zavalevska (374 for), former Deputy Head of Affairs of the Superior Justice Council and now First Deputy Head of the State Plant Varieties Administration; Volodymyr Zaplatynsky (299 for) member of the SDPU(O) faction and Secretary of the Parliamentary Committee on Economic Policies, National Economy Management, Property, and Investment; Ihor Kachura (346 for), Verkhovna Rada deputy, head of the subcommittee of the Committee on Legal Policies, Head of the Superior Justice Council, President of the Odesa National Law Academy, and leader of the Ukrainian Naval Party; Ruslan Kniazevych (368); head of the current CEC Secretariat, Mykhailo Okhendovsky (286) deputy director of the Proksen law firm; and Bronislav Raikovsky (369) former member of the ad hoc committee On Observing the Legislation in the Period of Preparing and Conducting the Presidential Elections in Ukraine in the previous convocation Verkhovna Rada. The deputies did not support the candidatures of Bronislav Stychynsky and Ihor Tolkachov. Yury Danylevsky, Mykola Rybachuk, and Maryna Stavniychuk preserved their positions from previous CEC membership.

Even before the voting, the new Central Election Committee structure received ambiguous evaluations from the representatives of various political forces. In part, the opposition expressed its concern regarding the possible political engagement of the figures suggested by the head of the state. The president himself stated that he believes it necessary to form the CEC on professional, not political basis. A few weeks before the issue of CEC members’ rotation was considered by the parliament, its speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn forecasted that it would inflame political passions in the session hall and confrontation between the majority and minority, not agreeing with the president’s proposals. However, such forecasts proved to be incorrect. Moreover, judging by the number of deputies who voted in support of the president’s candidates, there were not only majority members among them. Simultaneously, the People’s Democratic Party faction’s refusal to vote because of the fact that their candidature was not taken into consideration is further evidence of the fact that the new Central Election Committee is anything but quota-based representation of the pro-presidential forces in parliament.

Last Thursday the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine gave its assent to appoint members of the Central Election Committee Oleksandr Chupakhin and Andriy Mahera. Chupakhin, whose candidature was proposed by the Socialist Party faction, was supported by 396 of 442 deputies registered in the meeting hall. Mahera, proposed by the Our Ukraine faction, received 410 votes. The same day the twelve newly appointed CEC members brought their oath in the parliament. Since two of them are people’s deputies, now they have to resign their authorities. The same day Serhiy Kivalov was elected the CEC head.