The CEC named the key conditions for holding post-war elections in Ukraine
Фото: Макс Левин
Preparations for the first post-war elections in Ukraine will take considerable time due to destroyed infrastructure and mass population displacement.
Reuters reports this.
The Chairman of the Central Election Commission, Oleg Didenko, stated that a ceasefire and security guarantees for voters remain mandatory conditions for holding the vote.
“Election legislation issues in peacetime in Ukraine have never been resolved quickly or easily. Now these processes have become even more complicated, because there are much more challenges,” Didenko said.
Nearly 19 million citizens out of 30 million registered voters took part in the 2019 presidential election. According to pre-war data, at least 20% of them lived in territories currently under Russian occupation.
Oleg Didenko stressed that holding the vote in the occupied territories remains impossible. At the same time, Ukraine will ensure the right to vote for citizens who can arrive in the territory controlled by Kyiv.
According to the UN Refugee Agency, there are currently about 5.8 million Ukrainians abroad, mostly in European countries. Didenko noted that the 102 polling stations at embassies and consulates will not be able to provide full voting for such a large number of voters.
He called the opening of polling stations outside diplomatic institutions the most realistic option. Online voting and voting by mail, he said, create risks of external interference and attempts to discredit the electoral process.
The CEC chairman called the organization of voting for military personnel a separate challenge. According to him, Ukraine will be able to use its own experience in this matter.
According to the Central Election Commission, as a result of Russian aggression in Ukraine, almost two thousand out of more than 30 thousand polling stations were destroyed or damaged, mainly in the eastern regions.
As previously reported, the head of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, Oleksiy Koshel, categorically rejected the idea of hybrid or remote voting , citing critical vulnerability to Russian cyber threats and lack of public trust.
As a reminder, the Verkhovna Rada has begun work on legislative proposals regarding holding elections during and after the war.