Ukraine Set to Improve its Election Legislation

KIEV, Ukraine, November 9, 2010 - Having evaluated the results of the local authority elections
last week, Ukrainian leadership has decided to make several steps towards
improving the national election legislation. The main goal of the measures
initiated last week was to consider the evaluations of the international
observers and to make sure that the draw-backs of the current elections are
not repeated.

First of all, the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych
initiated the creation of a special working group. The Minister of Justice of
Ukraine, Oleksandr Lavrynovych, was appointed as its head. The other members
include the representatives of the Central Election Commission and a number
of Ukrainian Ministries, the officials of the President's Administration,
President's counselors, Supreme Court judges, scientists etc.

The main task of the working group is to bring the Ukrainian
election legislation incompliance with the generally recognized international
democratic standards. Until May 1, 2011 the group has to produce a number of
legislative suggestions for the complex and systematic improvement of the
regulation of the election procedure in Ukraine.

Secondly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs invited the American
and European experts to participate in the working group together with the
Ukrainian authorities. According to the Director of the Information Policy
Department Oleg Voloshyn, the recommendations of the European experts after
the monitoring of the results of the Ukrainian local elections will be a
fundamental help in the process of development of democratic institutes in
Ukraine.

Additionally, President has signed a decree over the weekend
on the creation of the Commission on strengthening of democracy and asserting
the rule of law. The Commission will perform advisory functions and will
pursue the goal of consolidating the efforts of the government, political
parties, and civil society aimed at strengthening of democracy and rule of
law.

Earlier last week, many foreign observers presented their
evaluations of the elections' transparency. The delegation of the observers
of the European Parliament, as well as some other delegations from EU and
CIS, gave quite positive feedback, while the US Department of State was
critical.

Meanwhile, expressing the readiness to cooperate on improving
the election legislation, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and
Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon stressed at a press conference today: "We are
ready to help Kyiv with drawing up and implementing such an electoral code
that would let any elections meet the standards which will make democracy a
success story in Ukraine."

For more information, please contact Natalia Shulevska, +380633776645 news at wnu-ukraine.com, Project Manager at Worldwide News Ukraine