Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Deputy Chairman of Ukraine's Central Electoral Commission, Andriy Mahera (on left), says adoption of the new election law will made an already bad law worse. Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Feb. 4 cancelled a scheduled campaign stop in Lviv in order to lobby against new provisions in the presidential election law approved a day earlier by parliament.

The new measure, if signed into law by President Victor Yushchenko, would scrap the requirement for a quorum of representatives of both contenders to approve the count at individual polling stations. It also provides for the heads of village councils and local municipalities – not the Central Election Commission – to appoint replacements if the candidates’ representatives don’t show up.

The controversial changes, if adopted, will make the already flawed law worse, Andriy Mahera, deputy chairman of the Central Election Commission said during a round table conference in Kyiv.

"Each candidate has his or her sympathizers in different regions of the country. If one of them wants to prevent a quorum on an election commission, the temptation for the other to respond in kind would be overwhelming,” news agencies quoted Mahera as saying on Feb. 3 before the vote.

In an interview on Feb. 3 with the German news organization Deutsche Welle, Oleksandr Chernenko, head of the Committee of Ukrainian Voters, a non-profit organization which has monitored most of Ukraine’s national elections since 1991, called the changes "absurd."

“The new law nullifies the requirement for a quorum as a necessary attribute of a collective body,” Chernenko said. “That a leading political force revised the bill at the last second begs the question: How do they benefit the ordinary Ukrainian voter?”

Chenenko said it is obvious that deputies from the Party of Regions initiated the changes out of political expediency.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has condemned the bill, urging Yushchenko to veto it. Yanukovych, meanwhile, says he is sure Yushchenko will sign it.

Some 233 deputies from the 450-member parliament approved the provisions on Feb. 3 in parliament. They include almost all deputies from Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, member of Rada speakers Volodymyr Lytyn’s bloc and the Communist Party faction. Some 29 deputies belonging the president’s Our Ukraine faction also voted in favor.