The Ukrainian parliament on Sept. 13 fired the whole Central Election Commission, the 16-member body in charge of organizing elections.
Supported by 341 votes, the decision came without a surprise since President Volodymyr Zelensky, who’s Servant of the People party has a majority in parliament, on Sept. 10 formally requested that the current Commission composition would be dismissed.
Zelensky argued in his written request to the parliament that the commission had repeatedly demonstrated a political bias, including by refusing to register 28 candidates in the July 21 parliamentary election, which Zelensky’s party won in a landslide.
He said that courts had canceled many of the commission’s decisions as unlawful.
As an example, Zelensky cited District 169 in Kharkiv, where Oleksandr Kunitsky from Zelensky’s Servant of the People party ran against Oleksandr Hranovsky, an ex-lawmaker from former President Petro Poroshenko’s party.
Kunitsky was banned from running by the Central Election Commission on July 11 due to his Israeli citizenship and alleged violations of residency requirements. Later a court canceled the decision, and he was elected to parliament.
Zelensky also said that the commission had so far failed to recognize the winner in District 198.
On Sept. 11, the Central Election Commission issued a statement citing that the court found that the commission did not intend to create any obstacles to the suffrage process.
Members of Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party expressed dissatisfaction with this decision, saying that members of the commission should have been invited to report to the parliament.
The commission was appointed in September 2018, after the term of the previous commission expired in 2014.
The Central Election Commission, which currently consists of 16 members, is appointed by the parliament, with the current parliament having a pro-presidential single-party majority.
The move follows hints by Zelensky that this year the Verkhovna Rada may announce early local elections, which would have to be held by the Central Election Commission. Scheduled local elections are expected to take place in 2020.
