The mission of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO) reports on shortcomings of Ukrainian legislation and organization of the electoral process at local election in 2015 in Ukraine.

"The recently adopted, new Law on Local Elections brings significant changes to Ukrainian electoral scene, causing concerns whether its provisions will be adequately understood by election contestants and voters, or properly implemented by respective election commissions, given the complexity of the election system being used for the first time in Ukraine," reads the interim report (October 5 through October 21, 2015) published on Saturday.

"The new law failed to introduce adequate mechanisms to cope with shortcomings reported by ENEMO and other, international and domestic stakeholders during previous elections, especially those related to the level of politicization of the electoral process (systems of nominating electoral candidates and electoral administration bodies); the parallel systems of election dispute resolutions; inadequate regulations regarding financing of political parties, abuse of state resources and election campaigning; registration of candidates; media conduct; high number of voters per precinct election commissions and other issues," reads the report.

ENEMO experts said that Lawmakers' term "open list", used in the new law for this electoral system, for election of councils in multi-member constituencies, is questionable, as it neither gives the voters a chance to vote for a candidate, within or out of the party list, nor provides for an adequate representation of all territorial districts.

"Introduction of nomination districts is helping making the overall campaign more competitive within the party, but it does not have the basic characteristics of an open list system," reads the report.

The new law does not state the maximum deviation on the number of voters per electoral district, while creating boundaries of such districts by relevant TECs (territorial electoral commissions), thus leaving space for potential gerrymandering.

CEC did not have enough time, neither resources to properly train all newly replaced commission members. According to latest information, more than 1,500 TEC members have been replaced by relevant branches of political parties.

In a number of cases TECs rejected candidates based on inaccuracies in the candidate registration. In majority of these cases, candidates were rejected due to largely politicized composition of TEC members.

"ENEMO would like to commend the CEC for its professionalism and impartiality in the process of overseeing and taking actions towards certain TECs, in the process of registration of candidates running for elections, so that the legal provisions are somewhat respected and relevant election subjects are given the possibility to run for elections. However, due to a long registration process, a number of candidates had a shorter period of time for official election campaigning," reads the report.

According to the report, in total, 10,721 relevant councils are to be elected during this election process, with approximately 162,009 councilors in total. Simultaneously, 10,210 candidates are running for elections of Mayors and Heads. With regards to gender representation, the total number of female council candidates is around 35%, whereas the percentage of women running for Mayors/Heads is less than 13%

ENEMO has not received any complaints or concerns regarding the voters' list accuracy. According to latest data, around 30 million voters will be able to vote in the upcoming local elections. Around 1.5 million of internally displaced persons (IDPs) will not be able to vote on 25 October in their current place of refuge.

ENEMO said that most violations during the electoral campaigns were related to an early campaigning (before official registration decision of relevant TEC), indirect vote-buying (bribery), placing of posters at forbidden places (public transportation, state institutions, cultural sites), distribution of campaigning materials without proper marking, negative (black) PR and similar violations. Several alleged cases of the abuse of state resources have been reported to ENEMO observers by relevant interlocutors.

A number of cases of violence against certain party activists have been reported in Zaporizhia, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv and other places. Also, political materials and assets of certain candidates were damaged in Sumy, Kharkiv and other cities.

"ENEMO urges all relevant state authorities to process such cases and perpetrators efficiently and accordingly, as well as all electoral contestants to restrain from similar actions in the future," reads the report.

ENEMO said that "transparency of media ownership remains poor, as businessmen and politicians often prefer to hide their influence over news programs. The main political pressure on media comes through financial, not overtly political pressures."

ENEMO began its election observation mission to Ukraine for the Local Elections 2015, on 1 October, with the arrival of 8 core team members to Kyiv. ENEMO additionally deployed 50 long-term observers (LTOs) countrywide to observe and assess the electoral process in their respective regions.