page_title: 2015 Ukrainian local elections
section_title: Changes in the law
hierarchical_section_title: 2015 Ukrainian local elections / Changes in the law
caption_attribution_description: English: Number of deputies of regional councils elected at the 25 October 2015 Ukrainian local elections
context_page_description: On 25 October 2015 local elections took place in Ukraine. The elections were conducted a little over a year since the 2014 snap local elections, which were only held throughout parts of the country. A second round of voting for the election of mayors in cities with more than 90,000 residents where no candidate gained more than 50% of the votes were held on 15 November 2015.
  Because of the ongoing conflict in East Ukraine and the February 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia, local elections were not conducted throughout all of the administrative subdivisions of Ukraine.
  The highest number of seats were won by the Petro Poroshenko Bloc "Solidarity", Fatherland and Our Land parties, followed by the Opposition Bloc and the Radical Party. The Petro Poroshenko Bloc did well in the western regions, central Ukraine, and the Kherson Oblast of the south. The Opposition Bloc gained most of the votes of the south and east. In the west, Svoboda improved its performance compared with previous year's parliamentary election.
  A total of 132 political parties took part in the elections.
context_section_description: Parties registered 365 days before the election and who did not changed their name 180 days before the election were allowed to participate in the elections. On 14 July 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed a new law regarding the local elections in the country. This law uprated the election threshold from 3% to 5% (in order to get any seats in the council a party has to score 5% of the total vote of the election). It also introduced three electoral systems for (these) local elections:
  Mayors and deputies of settlement and village councils directly elected under a majoritarian system; in a first-past-the-post system.
  In cities with fewer than 90,000 voters Mayors are elected under a majoritarian system; in a first-past-the-post system. Region, district, city, and city district councils are elected in multi-member constituencies meaning that for the elections for the city council or district council their territory is split into constituencies. In these constituencies the parties nominated their candidates in closed party lists. Independent candidates can not take part in the elections in places bigger than a village or settlement. If a party passed the 5% election threshold the number of candidates from that party represented in a council will be established in accordance with the number of votes for a deputy in a certain constituency. Ballots have a check box for each party, rather than for individual candidates. Political parties in Ukraine can only register with the Ministry of Justice if they can "demonstrate a base of support in two-thirds of Ukraine's Oblasts" (Ukraine's 24 primary administrative units).
  If in a city with more than 90,000 voters (at the time of the elections this was 35 cities) the highest scoring mayoral candidate does not score over 50% of the votes + 1 vote a second round of the election will be held no later than 3 weeks after the election (in these elections that meant all second round elections on 15 November 2015).
  A proposition of the minimum number of deputies in a local council was to be 10 in places were the number of voters does not go above 500. The maximum number of Deputies in a council is 80 in places with more than 1.5 million voters. However, the proposition was not passed and the composition of local councils was preserved according to the law originally adopted on 14 July 2015. According to the article 16 the composition of local council is defined by the number of voters which is set at a minimum 12 deputies for up to 1,000 voters and a maximum 120 deputies for over 2 million voters. The composition of the Supreme Council of Autonomous Republic of Crimea is defined by the Constitution of Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
  A year after election voters can achieve a recall election if the collect as many signatures as voters.
  On the party list at least 30% have to be of the opposite sex as the other candidates. However, there are no legal sanctions if a party does not comply.
  Refugees of the War in Donbass and people who moved out of Crimea after the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea can not vote in the election if they are not registered as voters in the places they fled to.
  The new law also implemented election of starosta post which was introduced with the 2015 administrative reform. With the creation of new territorial communities, which started in the summer of 2015, voters are able to elect new leadership.
caption: The number of deputies elected to regional councils varies by population; the lowest is 64, while the highest is 120.
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