Formed November 1997 Headquarters Kiev | Website www.cvk.gov.ua | |
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Agency executives Mykhaylo Okhendovsky, ChairmanAndriy Mahera, DeputyZhanna Usenko-Chorna, Deputy | ||
The Central Election Commission of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Центральна виборча комісія України, commonly abbreviated in Ukrainian as ЦВК (Tse-Ve-Ka); sometimes referred to as the Central Electoral Commission of Ukraine) is a permanent and independent collegiate body of the Ukrainian government.
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Mission and Authority
The Commission is vested with authority to supervise and conduct presidential, parliamentary, and local self-government elections in Ukraine, as well as Ukrainian and local referendums. It issues mandatory decrees, which may be appealed to the Supreme Court of Ukraine or the High Administrative Court of Ukraine. The Commission is directly financed from the state budget of Ukraine.
The Commission doesn’t have any legal power to perform checks, investigate finance issues or punish violations.
The overall trust in the Central Election Commission of Ukraine in Ukraine is very low.
Composition and Appointment
The Commission consists of 15 members. Each member is appointed for a 7-year term by the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of Ukraine. Nominees are submitted by the President of Ukraine upon consultations with parliamentary factions and groups. Appointed members take an oath of office at the plenary session meeting of the parliament. All members of the commission have a higher education in law. The chairman of the commission is elected by the members of the commission through a secret voting.
The Commission elects out of its ranks the head of the Commission, deputy heads, and the secretary of the Commission.
Secretariat of the Commission
History
The first election commission in Ukraine was created in 1917 as an Electoral Bureau of the General Secretary of Internal Affairs and was headed by Mykhailo Kovenko. It prepared elections to the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly, which were interrupted by the Ukrainian-Soviet War. In 1989 the modern election commission was created under the Cabinet of Ukraine, which in 1997 became an independent body of the Ukrainian government.
Districts
There are different electoral divisions depending on the level of elections. Before the electoral of 1997 and the installation of the Central Election Commission the country consisted of 450 electoral districts (number of parliamentarians in Verkhovna Rada). With the introduction of party voting principle the number of districts changed to 225. Each electoral district includes around 120-180 smaller electoral precincts (dilnytsi).
Beside the national level elections the country conducts local elections as well. Each region (oblast or Autonomous Republic Crimea), district (raion), urban or rural settlement (see Administrative divisions of Ukraine) has its own council (rada) amounting altogether to some 12,088 councils of various size across the nation.
Western Ukraine
Presidential elections
Northern Ukraine
Presidential elections
Members
Former members
Former members of the Commission were appointed by the parliament on December 8, 2004. This appointment was an integral part of the legislative package to resolve the presidential election crisis in Ukraine. These members supervised the repeat of the second round of the presidential elections on December 26, 2004.
Members of the Commission as of January 1, 2005 were: