Preparations for elections after war will take at least 6 months - Ukraine's MP
Photo: Olena Shuliak, head of the Servant of the People party (Vitalii Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
Elections can be held only 6 months after the end of martial law. It will also be necessary to decide where to set up new polling stations, as many of them were destroyed by Russian strikes, according to Olena Shuliak, head of the Servant of the People party.
According to Shuliak, in December 2023, a meeting of all parliamentary factions and groups was held in the format of the Jean Monnet Dialogue, during which a document was signed, according to which everyone agreed that elections could be held 6 months after the end of martial law.
“That is, 6 months is the minimum period when everyone will be preparing for the elections both at the technical level and at the level of adopting the relevant legislation,” she explained.
Destroyed polling stations issue
The head of the Servant of the People party also noted that the Central Election Commission plays a significant role in preparing for the election process, which deals with the voter register, which was closed on February 24, 2022, as well as with the registration of polling stations.
“Unfortunately, thousands of such polling stations have been destroyed because they were mostly located either in kindergartens or schools that were destroyed by the Russians. Therefore, it is necessary to understand where the new polling stations will be, based on what they will be,” Shuliak said.
Presidential elections in Ukraine
As the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk explained earlier, the Constitution of Ukraine does not contain a direct ban on holding elections during the war. However, the ban is provided for in the law On the Legal Regime of Martial Law. This rule also applies to parliamentary elections.
According to political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko, elections in Ukraine will be held no earlier than 6 months after the end of the war.
