Украинаның Орталық Сайлау Комиссиясы

Government body

The Central Election Commission of Ukraine (Центральна виборча комісія України, commonly abbreviated in Ukrainian as ЦВК (Tse Ve Ka); sometimes referred to as the Central Electoral Commission of Ukraine) is a permanent and independent collegiate body of the Ukrainian state that acts on the basis of the Constitution of Ukraine, the laws of Ukraine and is responsible for organizing the arrangements and the conduct of the presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine as well as the local elections at all levels, managing the all Ukrainian and local referendums according to the procedure and within the legal framework defined by the laws of Ukraine.

The Commission manages the system of election commissions and referendum commissions established to arrange and conduct the presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine as well as the all Ukrainian referendums. The Commission supervises activities and provides the advisory and methodological support to the commissions established to arrange and conduct the local elections at all levels as well as the local referendums. The Commission discharges its mandate independently, separately from other government authorities, municipalities, officials and public officers.

The first election commission in Ukraine was created in 1917 as an Electoral Bureau of the General Secretary of Internal Affairs and was headed by Mykhailo Kovenko. It prepared elections to the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly, which were interrupted by the Ukrainian Soviet War. In 1989 the modern election commission was created under the Cabinet of Ukraine, which in 1997 became an independent body of the Ukrainian government.

There are different electoral divisions depending on the level of elections. Before the electoral of 1997 and the installation of the Central Election Commission the country consisted of 450 electoral districts (number of parliamentarians in Verkhovna Rada). With the introduction of party voting principle the number of districts changed to 225. Each electoral district includes around 120 180 smaller electoral precincts (dilnytsi). Beside the national level elections the country conducts local elections as well. Each region (oblast or Autonomous Republic Crimea), district (raion), urban or rural settlement (see Administrative divisions of Ukraine) has its own council (rada) amounting altogether to some 12,088 councils of various size across the nation.