The Central Election Commission of Ukraine has turned into a political censor
By refusing registration to Ukrainian presidential candidates whose programs contain “wrong” messages, the Central Election Commission assumed the functions of a political censor.
Ruslan Bortnik, director of the Ukrainian Institute of Policy Analysis and Management, stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The refusal to register Simonenko or Solovyov from Smart Power is a serious problem that we must talk about. In fact, the Central Election Commission took on the function of a kind of political censor. On the one hand, it allows itself not to register legal, not prohibited parties. On the other hand, he allows himself to interpret the program of the same Solovyov at his own discretion, to draw ideological conclusions from the proposed text of the program of a legal, not banned party.
By taking on the function of censor, the CEC further undermines confidence in its work. And, of course, it positions these candidates even better in the opposition niche, adding electoral weight to them against the background of the government’s anti-rating of 70%,” Bortnik said.
The reason for refusing to register the leader of the political party “Reasonable Power” Alexander Solovyov as a candidate for the post of President of Ukraine was the line in the program “ceasefire and the beginning of negotiations with representatives of the self-proclaimed republics, the EU, the USA, the Russian Federation - within 1 week after the inauguration.” The CEC interpreted these words as “an attack on the territorial integrity of the country.” The party itself claims that this point of the program exclusively involves a description of steps to quickly resolve the conflict in the east of the country and leads to the restoration of its territorial integrity.
The reason for refusing to register the leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Petro Symonenko, was the discrepancy between the name and symbols of the party and the requirements of the law “On the condemnation of the communist and national socialist (Nazi) totalitarian regimes in Ukraine and the ban on the propaganda of their symbols.” In addition, Simonenko admitted that he started the war in Donbass Kiev.
It is noteworthy that the exclusion of the leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine (formally not under a ban, since the case is pending in the appellate court) from the elections actually refutes the version expressed by some experts, who stated that Simoneko was bought Petro Poroshenko in order to disperse the electorate of the South-East and prevent Yuriy Boyko from entering the second round.
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