You're reading: Tymoshenko: Proportional voting system is the best for Ukraine

BYT leader Yulia Tymoshenko has said a proportional voting system is the best voting system for Ukraine.

"To my mind, the most reasonable, the most rational voting system is the proportional one, with open lists," Tymoshenko said at a press conference in Poltava, according to her official Web site.

She explained that "open lists are a combination of a voter selecting a member of a party and the best one in a district. This is a combination of two qualities: a good deputy and a person who is in a political force because of ideology."

According to Tymoshenko, this voting system "will give people what they expect, they will know their deputy, know what he looks like, can ask him about his work and at the same time see a strategy for the state’s development."

Tymoshenko noted that "[Ukraine’s President Viktor] Yanukovych wants a fifty-fifty majority and proportional voting system, [he want a system] on the level of districts, cities and regions, or rather his entourage wants this."

"This is rather his entourage, as he doesn’t really understand what this means, because in his recent interview he said he supports a majority system of elections to village councils and he will fight for this, he will hold talks and adopt such laws… But he doesn’t know yet what he is fighting for, but his entourage knows for sure what they are fighting for," Tymoshenko said.

According to the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia newspaper, the Regions Party proposes holding the elections of deputies to village and town councils under a majority voting system, while elections to city and district councils would be held under a mixed system.