2015 Ukrainian Local Elections

On 25 October 2015 local elections took place in Ukraine. The elections were conducted a little over a year since the 2014 snap local elections, which were only held throughout parts of the country. A second round of voting for the election of mayors in cities with more than 90,000 residents where no candidate gained more than 50% of the votes were held on 15 November 2015.

Because of the ongoing conflict in East Ukraine and the February 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia, local elections were not conducted throughout all of the administrative subdivisions of Ukraine.

The highest number of seats were won by the Petro Poroshenko Bloc "Solidarity", Fatherland and Our Land parties, followed by the Opposition Bloc and the Radical Party. The Petro Poroshenko Bloc did well in the western regions, central Ukraine, and the Kherson Oblast of the south. The Opposition Bloc gained most of the votes of the south and east (except Kharkiv Oblast). In the west, Svoboda improved its performance compared with previous year's parliamentary election.

A total of 132 political parties took part in the elections.
The political parties contested for the 1,600 regional council seats in 22 regional parliaments, more than 10,700 local councils and mayoral seats.Exit Polls Show Ukraine Divided For, Against Poroshenko Rule
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (27 October 2015)
Ukraine's prime minister opts out of polls
Financial Times (24 October 2015)
Electoral lists of candidates in multimember constituencies within the regions of Ukraine in the local elections in 2015
, Central Election Commission of Ukraine The voter turnout was 46.62% of the population. During the second round, the voter turnout dropped to 34.08%.

Background

Late January 2014 the Constitutional Court of Ukraine made a decision declaring that regardless of under which conditions the previous elections were conducted, regularly scheduled local elections must occur in October 2015.

The Central Election Commission of Ukraine asked the government to allocate ₴1.2 billion (approx. 100 million USD) towards financing the election (on 9 July 2014)

The campaign for the elections started on 5 September 2015. But since the start of the summer political advertising had begun to increase rapidly. This was marred with a sharp rise of handouts by potential candidates. Local issues were ignored by parties, who focused on national issues. According to Depo.ua and the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, political parties spend at least $82 million on campaigning. They claim that during the last two months of the campaign political parties rented 75 percent of Ukraine's 20,000 billboards.

More than 350,000 candidates (representing 132 political parties or as an independent candidate) were electable for 168,450 positions of mayors of cities, villages and settlements and for deputies of village, settlement, city, city district, district and 1,600 regional council seats in 22 regional councils. Candidates did not have to live in a constituency where they were sought office.

Elections in Crimea and Donbas

Because of the March 2014 unilateral annexation of Crimea by Russia, the elections could not be held throughout Crimea.

With the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine in Donbas, elections were not held in regional councils and some parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

On 25 October 2015, the elections were not held in certain government-held towns (in south-east Ukraine) close to the frontline because (it was believed in August 2015) there "voting may be dangerous to people's lives". These towns include Avdiivka, Marinka, Artemivsk and Kostiantynivka. While in other towns near the frontline, like Mariupol, the elections were decided to be held.Ukraine's pro-government parties join forces ahead of local elections
, Ukrainian Weekly (18 September 2015)

Changes in the law

Parties registered 365 days before the election and who had not changed their name 180 days before the election were allowed to participate in the elections. On 14 July 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed a new law regarding the local elections in the country. This law upgraded the election threshold from 3% to 5% (in order to get any seats in the council a party has to score 5% of the total vote of the election). It also introduced three electoral systems for (these) local elections:

#Mayors and deputies of settlement and village councils directly elected under a majoritarian system; in a first-past-the-post system.
#In cities with fewer than 90,000 voters Mayors are elected under a majoritarian system; in a first-past-the-post system. Region, district, city, and city district councils are elected in multi-member constituencies meaning that for the elections for the city council or district council their territory is split into constituencies. In these constituencies the parties nominated their candidates in closed party lists. Independent candidates can not take part in the elections in places bigger than a village or settlement. If a party passed the 5% election threshold the number of candidates from that party represented in a council will be established in accordance with the number of votes for a deputy in a certain constituency. Ballots have a check box for each party, rather than for individual candidates. Political parties in Ukraine can only register with the Ministry of Justice if they can "demonstrate a base of support in two-thirds of Ukraine's Oblasts" (Ukraine's 24 primary administrative units).
#If in a city with more than 90,000 voters (at the time of the elections this was 35 cities) the highest scoring mayoral candidate does not score over 50% of the votes + 1 vote a second round of the election will be held no later than 3 weeks after the election (in these elections that meant all second round elections on 15 November 2015).

A proposition of the minimum number of deputies in a local council was to be 10 in places were the number of voters does not go above 500. The maximum number of Deputies in a council is 80 in places with more than 1.5 million voters. However, the proposition was not passed and the composition of local councils was preserved according to the law originally adopted on 14 July 2015. According to the article 16 the composition of local council is defined by the number of voters which is set at a minimum 12 deputies for up to 1,000 voters and a maximum 120 deputies for over 2 million voters. The composition of the Supreme Council of Autonomous Republic of Crimea is defined by the Constitution of Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

A year after election voters can achieve a recall election if the collect as many signatures as voters.

On the party list at least 30% have to be of the opposite sex as the other candidates. However, there are no legal sanctions if a party does not comply.

Refugees of the war in Donbas and people who moved out of Crimea after the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea can not vote in the election if they are not registered as voters in the places they fled to.

The new law also implemented election of starosta post which was introduced with the 2015 administrative reform. With the creation of new territorial communities, which started in the summer of 2015, voters are able to elect new leadership.

Results

Election summary

In the election Petro Poroshenko Bloc "Solidarity", Fatherland and Our Land won the largest number of seats, followed by Opposition Bloc and Radical Party.

Petro Poroshenko Bloc did well in West and central Ukraine and Kherson Oblast. Fellow coalition partners in the second Yatsenyuk Government