Kyiv will remain without an elected city mayor and city council until October 2015, the constitutional court ruled on May 30.
Kyiv
has been without an elected mayor since June 2012 when controversial mayor Leonid Chernovetsky resigned. The
city council’s term expires on June 1.
The
October 2015 election will coincide with presidential elections and
nationwide local elections, which will be held together.
Currently
Galyna Hereha, head of the Kyiv city council,
is
acting city mayor. She is a lot less visible than the
city manager Oleksandr Popov,
who heads the executive branch
of the
city. Popov is a member of the ruling Party of Regions and was
appointed by President Viktor Yanukovych
in summer 2010 as Chernovetsky’s deputy.
Parliament
had previously
failed to schedule the
mayoral and city council elections
for June 2, as the opposition suggested. Only 209 lawmakers
out of 450 voted
for
the date on
April 2 as thousands of Kyivans rallied outside parliament
demanding elections.
The
opposition then said they didn’t
trust
the constitutional
court
to
set a reasonable election date since it’s controlled
by the ruling Party of Regions. The constitutional court
consists of six judges appointed by the president, six by the
national council of judges,
a body subordinate to the president, and six by parliament, in which
the Party of Regions sits the biggest faction.
“The
reason is that the
Party
of Regions do not have a person who is able to win mayoral
elections
in Kyiv,” Oleh Tiahnybok,
head
of the right-wing
Svoboda faction in parliament,
said on April 2.
A
legal
collision arose
following the pre-term 2008
elections in Kyiv.
Thus,
the constitutional court
was to rule if the pre-term elections should be treated
the same as a full-term election.
However,
the legal collision contradicts the constitution
which sets the term
limit
of
both the Kyiv mayor and the city council to five years,
according
to political
analyst Volodymyr Fesenko.
“This
decision will be criticized by the opposition, Kyivans and European
legal bodies like the Venice Commission.
Since Kyiv does not have an elected mayor for almost a year now, in
my opinion it would be wiser to hold elections now, with the possible
condition of the term
limited
to
2015.
This would be a compromise,” says Fesenko who heads Penta, a think
tank in Kyiv.
Kyiv
Post staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can be reached at
[email protected].
