President Victor Yushchenko considers open list of candidates for parliamentary elections as one of the conditions for eradicating corruption.
The presidential press service announced this in a statement.
According to Yushchenko, the Ukrainian Constitution is unfinished following its amendment in 2004, and it should be mended.
In particular, Yuschenko said it was necessary to eliminate the Constitution’s provisions on closed election lists.
"To change this is to see in power those Ukrainians for whom the interests of the nation are key… People are going to the parliament with the sole aim of recovering what they put into the till, into the purse of one party or another," Yuschenko said in an interview on the Rivne television channel.
Yuschenko expressed the belief that closed election lists have resulted in an increase in corruption in the country.
"As a result of this, V. Yuschenko is convinced that corruption is widespread in the government, the authorities are stealing land and state funds," the press service said in the statement.
Yuschenko also stressed that the draft Constitution that he submitted to the parliament for consideration was based exclusively on constitutional norms.
However, according to Yuschenko, the current parliament is not ready to adopt positive decisions regarding amendment of the Constitution.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Yuschenko recently said that he intended to submit to the parliament for consideration a draft law that provided for introduction of election of local councils based on the majority representation system and introduction of open party lists for parliamentary elections.
The parliament rejected on November 3 a draft law that provided for improving the procedures for creating territorial elections commissions and introducing open lists of candidates for election to local councils.
In July 2005, the parliament amended the Law on Election of Parliamentary Deputies to introduce elections based on the proportional representation system (in which political parties or blocs nominate parliamentary candidates).
