The government has had its way

The elections in Kyiv won’t be held neither in summer nor in fall of this year, but only in October of 2015. This was defined by the decision made by the Constitutional Court on May 30. This applies to both the elections of the deputies for the city council and the mayor elections. As we can see, regardless of all the predictions made by politicians and experts, the government has had its way (the Constitutional Court is always a great help in situations like this), because they weren’t interested in having the elections in Kyiv and the MPs from the Party of Regions appealed to the Constitutional Court for interpretation of the law. Was this decision made only in favor of the ruling party? We will discuss it further.

The Constitutional Court noted that for unification of all terms for regular elections and providing the mechanism of holding the elections simultaneously, all regular elections of deputies for the local councils must be held on the last Sunday of October 2015. “The elections of the deputies elected by special elections must be held within the given period of time,” says the court’s decision.

How does the opposition react? First, they, as we all know, tried to call the elections on June 2, but they did not get enough votes in the parliament to support this initiative (the majority did not vote). The Day’s journalist reports that the leader of the UDAR Party Vitali Klitschko expected such a decision of the Constitutional Court, that’s why during a briefing at the National Congress of Small and Medium-Sized Business on May 30 before the court’s decision was announced he said: “Decision of the Constitutional Court to postpone the elections means the destruction of self government, it is done to rip the residents of Kyiv of their right to control the city where they live. Whose interests do the judges defend now in courts, when the Constitutional Court makes a decision not following the norms of the Constitution, but the one that works in favor of the head of the state?”

“The decision was rather predictable,” political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko commented for The Day. “Most likely, they decided not to risk and, thus, did not call the elections in the summer of this year (which would be the case if the special elections were called). There is certain logic in the decision made by the Constitutional Court. Indeed, it is necessary to hold all the local elections at the same time across the country. But I will now name the arguments, which will be used by both the opposition and experts. Kyiv hasn’t had a mayor for a year already and won’t have one for another two years – is this according to the norms of the Constitution? According to the Constitution, the term of office for all bodies of local government is five years. Based on the decision of the Constitutional Court, the current council will have seven years in office – does this agree with the Constitution?”

The expert believes that the decision of the Constitutional Court legalizes the new elections in Kyiv in 2015, but it does not make the situation with the state of Kyiv government legitimate. “Of course, the opposition will claim the decision of the Constitutional Court to be illegitimate. We can even predict that soon we will see how the work of the Kyiv Council will be blocked. It may even happen that there will be no adequate local self government.”

Who will benefit from it? “There are certain political gains in this situation, but the city itself will loose from it,” said the expert. “The decision of the Constitutional Court can not be changed already. The only way it can be done is only in political pane through systematic political conflict in Kyiv. I am not sure whether the opposition is able to do that at this point. Moreover, I have a great suspicion that the opposition was expecting such decision because it means one trouble less for them. In my opinion, the opposition sacrificed elections in Kyiv for the sake of the presidential ambitions of the opposition leaders. That’s why they did not really fight for the Kyiv elections and rather passively watched as authorities implemented their scenario through the decision of the Constitutional Court.”