Elections in Ukraine “theoretically possible” this year, but war must end first, Ukraine’s Central Election Commission chair says
Pravda Ukraine
Oleh Didenko, Chair of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission (CEC), has stated that elections in Ukraine are “theoretically possible” this year, though they would require the war to end and martial law to be lifted.
Source: Didenko in an interview with Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian Service
Quote: “Are elections in Ukraine theoretically possible on 26 October? In theory, yes. But what’s necessary for this? This would require peace in Ukraine, the end of martial law, and sufficient time to amend legislation and properly organise the election process.”
Details: Didenko believes that such a scenario is unlikely in the current circumstances:
“If we are talking about whether we are taking concrete steps to prepare for the elections on 26 October this year, then definitely not. As of now, we have neither factual nor legal grounds to talk about elections. We’re still under martial law. During martial law, elections cannot be organised or held,” the CEC chairman added.
Didenko suggested that discussions about elections in Ukraine would primarily benefit Russia, as it could use them to destabilise the situation and undermine the legitimacy of the current government.
Didenko responded to remarks by Ukraine’s fifth president, Petro Poroshenko, about the Ukraine printing plant being tasked with estimating the cost of printing ballots. The CEC chairman maintained that this does not constitute election preparations.
“The CEC regularly submits such requests to the Ukraine printing plant as part of the routine budget planning process,” he said. “For instance, in 2022, we were preparing a budget request for 2023, and to estimate the approximate cost of elections, we needed to determine the cost of ballots. This is a standard procedure and does not indicate anything.”
He added that the CEC has working groups to prepare for the post-war elections. These groups are exploring various ways to simplify voting, including “changing the form of the ballot”. The requests may be related to clarifying the cost of these changes.
In addition, Didenko mentioned that there have been inquiries about whether the Ukraine printing plant could produce ballots in Braille to make them more accessible to visually impaired voters.
He also explained the reopening of the State Voter Registry, which had been closed since the start of the full-scale invasion.
Didenko noted that the registry’s work was halted to prevent voter and CEC employee data “from falling into the hands of the enemy, particularly through the registry departments located in territories that quickly fell under occupation”. This decision was also made for cybersecurity reasons.
“When the Central Election Commission decided to restore the registry by updating the data, work began on entering this information into the register. This process took over six months and was completed. Afterwards, a decision was made to update the address information. Street names and house numbers had changed. Additionally, some houses had disappeared, while others were added,” he noted.
He added that the voter register is used not only during elections but also in the inter-election period, meaning it “should always be up to date”.
“Therefore, it is incorrect to suggest that elections are imminent simply because the Central Election Commission is working on keeping the voter register up to date,” the CEC chairman concluded.
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