№5, 2010 Local Self-RescuingLocal government bodies will block the nearest elections to the local councils if no amendments are made to the electoral legislation. It was declared by the delegates of newly formed National Congress of Local Self-Government at the first plenary meeting. Almost 300 representatives of local government bodies of all levels – from village to region councils – participated in the work of the forum. The President of the Association of Ukrainian Cities, mayor of Dnipropetrovsk Ivan KULICHENKO, who headed at the first common meeting, underlined several times: congress is not political organization but the form of cooperation for the protection of rights of territorial societies. After collective farms had been disorganized, village councils began to have only financial liabilities before countrymen. Financial and material resources for fulfilling plenary powers have disappeared, - head of the Allukrainian Association of Village and Settlement Councils, village head of Lypyn of Volyn region Bogdan GUSAK says. - All high government bodies and opposition stand for majority system. But national deputies draw the wool over our eyes and do not make any amendments to the law, - complains mayor of Zaporizhzhya Yevgen KARTASHOV. Ivan SHYLEPNYTSKYI, the head of Chernigiv Region Council, offers not to implement majority system of elections at the level of district and region councils. “In such case we will come back to the times when in the morning we had one coalition, and in the afternoon there was a different one. In actual fact party system has made only first steps and that is why it shouldn’t be ruined. Elections have to take place even according to party lists, but they have to be open”, - he is convinced. Mayor of the youngest city in Ukraine – Slavutych which is in Kyiv region – Volodymyr UDOVYCHENKO is also a passionate supporter of decentralization of state power. Roman TERESHKUN, the head of Tysmenetskyi division of the Allukrainian Association of Village and Settlement Councils which is in Ivano-Frankivsk, also complains about national deputies. He has been elected as a village head of Ugryniv for five times, and he has not received any help from parliamentarians yet. Yuriy POTASHNIY |