Spring or summer of 2008 is the soonest pre-term mayoral elections could be held in Kyiv
Spring or summer of 2008 is the soonest preterm mayoral elections could be held in Kyiv, according to elections watchdog Committee of Voters of Ukraine.
In an Oct. 23 report the CVU noted that current Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetskiy and heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko would likely be frontrunners in a snap mayoral race.
The likely coalition agreement between Yulia Tymoshenko’s Byut and the pro-presidential Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense blocs includes working together toward early elections in the capital – something Byut has been demanding in the last year.
The CVU said that Ukrainian law provides three possible ways to terminate the current city council early: via referendum, a city council vote, or by national parliament.
The CVU said previous attempts to hold a referendum failed partly due to shortcomings in the law regulating plebiscites. If the new parliament changes the law and a new petition of nearly a quarter-million signatures demanding the referendum is successful, then the Kyiv-wide confidence vote could take place as early as May. New elections, however, could take place as late as September of next year, according to the CVU.
Chernovetskiy is supported by a slight majority of the 120 elected officials divided across 11 factions in the current city council, making it highly unlikely that two-thirds of the council will vote to voluntarily disband.
The CVU noted that some of the deputies may lose their seats if the Constitutional Court ruling on the “imperative mandate” finds elected officials cannot defect from their parties after being elected on their ticket. The court’s decision is expected in the next three months. Even so, the soonest early mayoral elections could be held is August of next year, according to the CVU.
Concerning the prospect that the new parliament will vote to disband the Kyiv city council, the CVU pointed out that the courts should first rule that the municipal council acted illegally.
“The Klitschko Bloc’s claim concerning the illegality of Kyiv council decisions of Oct. 1 can become the first real step in this direction,” according to the NGO.
Klitschko’s bloc filed a claim with the city administrative court against the hundreds of land transfers that were passed by the council in a matter of a few hours on Oct. 1. Several court cases and inevitable appeals will take three to four months, according to the CVU.
“If there is a slight majority of only 228 deputies [in the parliament], this majority will not vote no-confidence in the Kyiv government because of ties that many have with the city’s leadership,” the CVU’s experts wrote. City council deputies elected on the pro-presidential Our Ukraine list last year voted with the Chernovetskiy Bloc to push through controversial land decisions on Oct. 1 that gave away around 3,000 hectares, or about 3 percent of Kyiv territory to city council members.
“Only if the idea of voting no-confidence is supported by the Party of Regions and Lytvyn Bloc factions… then the elections could be held in April-May 2008.”
“Early elections in Kyiv can only be held as a result of a professional and active campaign by forces that are in opposition to the mayor,” the report concluded.
