Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has proposed changing the political division of the country, which should include regions, districts and "hromadas" (communities).
“The country’s administrative-territorial structure includes such administrative units – regions, districts and communities,” read draft constitutional amendments put forward by the Ukrainian president and made available to Interfax-Ukraine.
According to the document, the regions of Ukraine include the Autonomous Republic of Crimea; Vinnytsia, Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zhytomyr, Zakarpattia, Zaporizhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Kirovohrad, Luhansk, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Kherson, Khmelnytsky, Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, and Chernihiv regions, and the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol.
The resolution defines a community as an administrative territory, formed according to the procedure established by law, which includes one or more settlements (villages, towns, cities), as well as adjacent areas. The bill also says that communities must be represented in district and regional councils.
Residents of a community shall elect a village, a settlement, or a
city head through common, equitable, and direct voting in a secret
ballot, who shall head the council’s executive committee and chair its
sessions. A village, settlement, or city head elected in such a way
shall stay in office for five years.
The chairman of a district council shall be elected from its deputies
and shall head its executive body. A district council shall build the
council’s executive body following recommendations by its elected
chairman.
The chairman of a regional council shall be elected from its deputies and shall head its executive body.
Local self-government bodies may be invested with some executive
powers under the law. The state shall finance the enforcement of these
powers fully from the national budget or through transferring some
national taxes to local budgets. The state shall also transfer some
national properties to local self-government bodies.
Poroshenko said earlier that he would register the bill with the parliament on June 26.
