After a delay of four years, the Verkhovna Rada voted on Sept. 20 to dismiss 13 members of the Central Election Commission, replacing them with 14 new ones.
The 17-seat government body will organize the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for next year and count the votes.
But the old commission had long lost its credibility. It was formed during the reign of ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych, and most of its members were nominated by Yanukovych’s Party of Regions.
The terms of 12 of its members expired in June 2014. One more member’s term formally ended in February 2017.
Moreover, commission chairman Mykhailo Okhendovsky, a former Yanukovych ally appointed back in 2004, has been under investigation since December 2016 for allegedly receiving illegal funds from the Party of Regions’ “black cash” ledgers.
The Rada voted separately for 14 new members of the commission, who were proposed by the parties in proportion to their representation in parliament.
Six were nominated by the Petro Poroshenko Bloc. Three more are representatives of the People’s Front. Together the two parties form the ruling coalition.
Opposition parties — Batkivshchyna, Samopomich, Vidrodzhennia (Revival), People’s Will, and the Radical Party — will have one representative each.
Additionally, two commission members from other parties, Kateryna Makhnitska from Svoboda and Oleh Didenko from Udar (the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform) — will remain at their posts. Their terms will expire in 2021.
Only one of the 17 seats remains vacant. It will most likely be granted to a representative of the Opposition Block party, according to Iryna Lutsenko, President Poroshenko’s representative in parliament.
