Groysman calls on CEC to find opportunity to hold elections in merged communities

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has called on the Central Election Commission (CEC) to reconsider its decision on the scheduling and holding of elections in merged territorial communities.

"The CEC has recently adopted a decision that made it impossible to hold elections in newly formed merged communities in October. This decision creates the risk of delaying decentralization, which is currently one of the most successful and required reforms," he wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday.

He said it was unacceptable to impede the aspiration of the communities that want to follow the path of unification and create additional barriers on their way.

"Therefore, I urge the Central Election Commission to reconsider its decision and find an opportunity to facilitate the holding of elections in the communities where they were planned," Groysman said.

Earlier on this day, the Committee of Voters of Ukraine called on the CEC to unblock the process of scheduling and holding elections in merged territorial communities. The committee said that elections in more than a hundred merged communities, in which a million people live, were planned at least for October this year. If elections are set for the last Sunday in October 2018, the CEC should set the elections before August 17.

The committee said that the CEC might set elections for a different date (later than October 2018) if changes are made to its resolution of February 12, 2016 on the procedure for scheduling the first elections to merged territorial communities.