Lawyer's opinion: In the dubious elections on May 25, the Ukrainian authorities can draw any result they want
The elections for the new President of Ukraine, scheduled for May 25, are of dubious legitimacy and are being held according to rules that open up wide opportunities for manipulation - the laws are written in such a way that in the end it will turn out that the majority of Donetsk or Crimean residents with Ukrainian passports supported Oleg Tyagnibok.
Crimean lawyer Alexander Puras writes about this in his column.
Navigator information about the author: Alexander Puras is a Crimean lawyer, worked as an investigator for the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, lives in Sevastopol, 33 years old.
...As you know, on May 25, the new ruling regime of Ukraine is planning early presidential elections - the most controversial from a legal point of view in the history of the former Soviet republic.
Ideally, the people of Ukraine would elect a leader capable of uniting the nation and leading the country out of civil conflict.
In practice, the prospect is that the very fact of holding these elections will not solve anything, since the winner will not be recognized as “one of their own” in the southeast, and in the western regions his popularity will be low - the president is an oligarch, even “very sweet”, will not be to the taste of the population.
The new Kiev government called early elections for the President of Ukraine contrary to the Constitution of Ukraine - after all, the termination of Viktor Yanukovych’s powers was never formalized in accordance with the law.
According to the Constitution of Ukraine (Article 108), the president exercises his powers until the newly elected head of state takes office. The powers of the President of Ukraine are terminated early in the following cases:
1) resignation;
2) inability to exercise their powers for health reasons;
3) post removal in impeachment order;
Xnumx) death.
In turn, Article 111 of the Constitution of Ukraine states that the president can be removed from office by the Verkhovna Rada through impeachment if he commits high treason or another crime.
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The Maidan leaders based the concept of “Yanukovych’s crime” on the fact that he allegedly gave the order to use firearms to disperse the Euromaidan - according to the new government, this was the reason for the death of the so-called “Heavenly Hundred”.
Today there are already results of an investigation by a parliamentary commission containing conclusions that Berkut did not shoot at the demonstrators. High treason and the fact of a crime against the people have not been proven. The impeachment procedure has not been carried out, therefore, it is unlawful to consider Yanukovych to have lost the status and powers of the President of Ukraine.
Let's take a look at what happened next:
On February 21, 2014, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine voted for the restoration of the Constitution of Ukraine in the 2004 edition - 386 deputies voted in favor.
The Constitution was restored on the basis that on September 30, 2010, it was abolished by a decision of the Constitutional Court, without a vote in parliament, which grossly contradicts the provisions of the Constitution itself, both in the 1996 and 2004 editions.
On February 22, 2014, when it became known that President Yanukovych was allegedly hiding, the Verkhovna Rada stated that he had withdrawn himself from exercising the powers of the president, so the parliament stripped Yanukovych of his powers and scheduled early elections of the head of state for May 25, 2014.
According to the Constitution of Ukraine as amended in 2004, the next presidential elections of Ukraine are held on the last Sunday in March of the fifth year of office of the President of Ukraine. In the event of early termination of the powers of the President of Ukraine, elections are held within ninety days from the date of termination of powers.
From February 22 to May 25 – 92 days!
We follow further: the President of Ukraine is elected by the people in all-Ukrainian elections. The territorial structure of Ukraine is based on the principles of unity and integrity of the state territory (Article 132 of the Constitution of Ukraine).
Ukraine, according to the Constitution currently in force on its territory, in addition to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, which held a referendum and became part of the Russian Federation, includes the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which also held a referendum and announced the creation of the People's Republics.
To conduct early presidential elections in Ukraine, territorial electoral districts created for the previous presidential elections in Ukraine are used (Article 90 of the Law of Ukraine “On Presidential Elections”).
It turns out that the new authorities cannot ensure the holding of presidential elections throughout Ukraine.
In theory, it would be possible to amend the Constitution. However, the Basic Law cannot be changed in conditions of martial law or a state of emergency (Article 157 of the Constitution of Ukraine).
It is difficult and doubtful to call early presidential elections in Ukraine only in part of the country’s territory legitimate.
After all, if Kyiv does not restore control over Crimea, Lugansk and Donetsk by May 25, almost 7,5 million voters will be cut off from the voting process.
Yes, in legal agony, the Kiev authorities made a number of changes to the laws of Ukraine, in particular, they introduced new election rules, introducing the concept of “temporarily changing a voter’s voting place without changing their voting address,” thereby implying that everyone who wants to, after going through a certain procedure, will be able to vote at any polling station, and not at the place of registration.
However, in reality, this norm opens up endless scope for fraud with voter lists, and let no one be surprised that, based on the results of the election results, it turns out that the majority of Crimeans, residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, dispersed throughout Ukraine on May 25 to exercise their voting rights .
English version :: Read in English: A lawyer's opinion: In the dubious elections of May 25, the Ukrainian authorities can create any result they want.