The 2020 Ukrainian local elections took place on Sunday 25 October 2020. Ukraine holds local elections 2020 (updated), The Ukrainian Week (25 October 2020)Rada appoints next elections to local self-govt bodies for Oct 25, Interfax-Ukraine (15 July 2020) In the election, deputies of district councils and rural townships were elected and elections for city mayors were held. In practice this meant that most voters had to fill out four ballots.Ukraine prepares for nationwide local elections, The Ukrainian Weekly (2 October 2020) On 15, 22 and 29 November and 6 December 2020 a second round of mayoral elections was held in cities with more than 75,000 voters where no candidate gained more than 50% of the votes. Mayors will be re-elected in seven cities on Sunday, Ukrainska Pravda (13 November 2020)
Due to the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea and loss of government control of parts of the Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast, no elections were held in parts of the two oblasts and in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Elections were also held in new raions that were formed following the 2020 administrative reform.
According to the results as published by the Central Election Commission of Ukraine the highest number of seats in the election was won by Servant of the People with 17.59% of local deputies nominated in the election by this party. Second place was for Fatherland with 12.39% of deputies and in third place was Opposition Platform — For Life with 11.75%. For the Future gained 11.42% of the total number of seats, European Solidarity 10.73% and Our Land 5.13%. The CEC showed the top 10 parties that won the most seats in the election, Ukrainska Pravda (18 November 2020) Independent candidates won 661 mayoral elections. Of the remaining elected 733 mayors 30.74% of them were Servant of the People candidates, 12.43% represented For the Future, 7.24% Fatherland, 7.1% Opposition Platform — For Life, 6.15% Our Land and 5.6% European Solidarity. Turnout (on 25 October) was reported at 36.88% by the Central Election Commission, down from almost 47% in the 2015 local elections. Явка виборців на місцевих виборах 25 жовтня 2020 року склала 36,88 % Voter turnout in the local elections on 25 October 2020 was 36.88%, Central Election Commission of Ukraine (26 October 2020)
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's party, Servant of the People, suffered setbacks in major cities across the country, including the capital Kyiv; meanwhile, both pro-European and pro-Russian parties made gains. In Ukraine's largest cities, not only Servant of the People but all national parties were beaten by local parties of individual city mayors.Ukrainian local elections: Zelenskyy fairytale is over by Anders Åslund, Atlantic Council (26 October 2020)
Overview The estimated number of voters is 27.2 million people. The number of voters on the lists at polling stations is estimated at 28.1 million people and the number of polling stations was more than 29,000.
Campaign Late June 2020 the first street political advertising appeared on Ukrainian streets, although the election campaign for the election officially starts on 5 September.Campaign false start: who is already advertised in the Dnipro, Civil movement "Chesno" (26 August 2020) According to Ukrainian law, political campaigning outside election campaign periods is prohibited.
On 15 July 2020, parliament set the election date to 25 October 2020.Ukraine's parliament approves date for local elections, UNIAN (15 July 2020)
Electoral system
For the first time in Ukrainian local elections, all candidates had to pay a cash deposit to be able to take part in the elections. The size of this deposit depends on the size of the population of the place where the election is held. The lowest deposit were for candidates for mayors of Uzhhorod (19,000 hryvnias), Nikopol (20,000 hryvnias) and Melitopol (24,000 hryvnias); while the highest was for the mayoral candidates of Kyiv (445,000 hryvnias), Kharkiv (219,000 hryvnias), and Dnipro (157,000 hryvnias).
On all candidate lists, two out of every five candidates had to be female.
Candidate could only be self-nominated in places with a population of less than 10,000 voters, in all other cases candidates had to be nominated by political parties.
In the mayoral elections in cities with fewer than 75,000 voters mayors were elected under a majoritarian system; in a first-past-the-post system. Surprises of local elections: what you need to know in order not to "break your brain" - 2, Ukrainska Pravda (19 October 2020) In the other Ukrainian cities a candidate had to receive more than 50% of all votes cast to win in the first round of the election. If not, the two candidates who received the largest number of votes faced of in a second round, the candidate that receive a simple majority in the second round (no longer necessarily more than 50%) was elected mayor. November 15, November 22 and November 29 are the dates of the second round of mayoral elections in cities with more than 75,000 voters. (On 29 November the second round of the mayoral election of Chernivtsi only.) After Yuriy Vilkul redrew himself from the second round of the mayoral election in Kryvyi Rih this second round was postponed to 6 December 2020. Elections of the mayor of Kryvyi Rih will be held on December 6, Ukrainska Pravda (17 November 2020)
In populated places with up to 10 thousand voters the town was divided into constituencies, from 2 to 4 deputies of the local council were elected from each constituency under the relative majority system. In the other elections voters had to fill in two types of candidate lists - one for the whole city (district or region) and a separate for their electoral district (in which they had to write down the number of their favourite candidate themselves). The number 1 on the party list of the whole city was guaranteed a place in the local council if the party passed the election threshold. The election will was held with a specific open list system. In order to benefit from this open list system, a candidate in an electoral district needed to gain 25% of the total number of votes received by all parties that did overcame the electoral threshold divided by the number of seats in the local council minus the seats won by the number 1's on the party list of the whole city. The elections had a 5% election threshold.
In practice most voters had to fill out four ballots. Voters in Kyiv received only two ballots, for the election of the mayor of Kyiv and the Kyiv City Council election. In Poltava, Kropyvnytskyi, Kryvyi Rih, Kherson and Zhytomyr voters received an additional fifth ballot for candidates for the district councils in the city.
Deputies of local councils will receive no compensation for their work.
Non-voting areas Due to the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, no elections in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea were held. Loss of government control of parts of the Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast (to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic) also means elections were not held in certain parts of these provinces. There were also no elections for the Donetsk Oblast Council and Luhansk Oblast Council as their functions are currently being performed by civil–military administrations.
Results
Due to the new electoral system in which the elections were held, voting officials and the NGO Committee of Voters of Ukraine warned that the official publication of the election results would probably take several days.The results of the elections in Kyiv will be known at best on October 28 - TECs, The Ukrainian Weekly (25 October 2020)Local elections. The counting of votes may take a long time - CVU, The Ukrainian Weekly (25 October 2020)
Exit polls Exit polls indicated that president Volodymyr Zelenskyy's party, Servant of the People, had suffered setbacks in Ukraine's major cities, including the capital Kyiv; it appeared that only in Zelenskyy's hometown Kryvyi Rih Servant of the People won the election with a slight margin, although they lost the mayoral election there.
The overall picture emerging from the exit polls was that pro-European and pro-Russian parties had appeared to have made gains, but that in Ukraine's major cities national parties had been beaten by local parties of individual city mayors.
Election summary According to the results as published by the Central Election Commission of Ukraine, the highest number of seats in the election was won by Servant of the People with 17.59% of local deputies nominated in the election by this party. Second place was for Fatherland with 12.39% of deputies and in third place was Opposition Platform — For Life with 11.75%. For the Future gained 11.42% of the total number of seats, European Solidarity 10.73% and Our Land 5.13%. In total, 110 political parties received their representatives in local councils at various levels. Some of these were won by the parties Svoboda with 2.61%, Ukrainian Strategy with 1.72%, Proposition 1,66% and Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko with 1.62%. Almost half of all seats was won by parties that did not win seats in the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election. Party measurement of the results of local elections in 2020, Ukrainska Pravda (23 November 2020) According to calculations made by Sociological group "RATING" 49% of all voters voted for local parties/non-parliamentary parties. Of the remaining voters 14.5% voted for Servant of the People, 13.7% for European Solidarity and 12.5% for Opposition Platform — For Life. Political Trends November 2020, Ukrainska Pravda (7 December 2020)
Most mayors elected were independent candidates, 661 nonpartisan politicians were elected mayor of a village, town or city. Of the remaining elected 733 mayors 30.74% of them were Servant of the People candidates, 12.43% represented For the Future, 7.24% Fatherland, 7.1% Opposition Platform — For Life, 6.15% Our Land, 5.6% European Solidarity, 3.83% Ukrainian Strategy and last came the party Trust with 3.14% (with its 23 mayors). Mayoral and village mayoral elections: CEC shows ranking of winning parties, Ukrainska Pravda (18 November 2020) Non-parliamentary parties, primarily the strictly local parties of city mayors, successfully performed in Ukraine's major cities. But in the elections of regional councils, parties represented in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) still dominated.