Andriy Kozhemiakin, first deputy head of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc faction at the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine, says if President Viktor Yushchenko vetoes the amendments to the presidential election law, the BYuT faction will initiate an extraordinary session, and the veto will be overridden, the press service of the bloc reported, according to UkrInform.
Kozhemiakin was surprised that "the President's Secretariat rushed to say the law would be vetoed even without considering it in detail." "This attests to only one thing: at the next elections Yushchenko and his entourage hope for administrative resource and different forms of election rigging rather than for people's support. This is the only explanation to hasty remarks on vetoing the law adopted," Kozhemiakin says.
The law, particularly, amends the procedure for forming district and precinct electoral commissions, reduces the election campaign period from 120 to 90 days, and eliminates the institute of absentee certificates and subscription lists in support of a presidential candidate.
Beside that, the monetary deposit of a presidential candidate was increased from UAH 500,000 to UAH 2.5 million (UAH 7.67 / USD 1).
On the very day of adoption of amendments to the presidential election law, Ihor Popov, deputy head of the President's Secretariat and the President's representative in parliament, said the head of state would veto them.
