The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Friday with 262 votes adopted with amendments in the first reading a bill on elections of people's deputies on a proportional basis, which proposes to lower the passing threshold in parliament to 3%. The bill was submitted by a group of people's deputies, in particular a member of the Socialist Party faction Mykola Rudkovsky and a member of the "Our Ukraine" faction Yuriy Kliuchkovsky. \n \nThe bill provides for the election of people's deputies based on election lists of candidates from political parties, election blocs of parties in a multi-mandate nationwide election district, which includes the entire territory of Ukraine. To conduct elections, the territory of this district is divided into 225 territorial election districts. \n \nThe number of such territorial election districts in each region is established by the Central Election Commission taking into account their administrative-territorial division and the number of voters. \n \nA polling station may be ordinary, special, or foreign. \n \nA citizen of Ukraine who has reached the age of 24, has the right to vote and has resided in Ukraine for the last 5 years may be elected as a people's deputy. \n \nVoting in elections is secret, control over the expression of will of voters, voting for another person or transfer by voters of the right to vote to any other person is prohibited. Citizens of Ukraine who have reached the age of 18 and have the right to vote have the right to nominate candidates for deputies. \n \nThe subjects of the election process are citizens of Ukraine, election commissions, parties and blocs, candidates and deputies, state authorities and local self-government bodies, official observers from parties. \n \nElections of people's deputies may be regular or early. Regular elections are held after the expiration of the constitutional term of office of the parliament on the last Sunday of March of the fourth year of the parliament's term of office. \n \nThe election process for regular elections of deputies begins 20 days before the elections. \n \nEarly elections of people's deputies are appointed by the President of Ukraine in the manner established by the Constitution. They must be held on the last Sunday of the 60-day period from the day of publication of the decree on the early termination of the parliament's powers (all terms defined in the draft law are calculated in calendar days). \n \nThe bill also defines for each party or bloc the right to proportional participation in leadership positions in district election commissions. \n\nThe powers of a territorial district election commission are terminated 25 days after the official publication of the election results. \n\nExpenses for the preparation and conduct of elections of people's deputies are carried out at the expense of funds from the state budget and election funds of parties (blocs), candidates for deputies registered with the Central Election Commission. To finance pre-election campaigning, a party or bloc registered by the Central Election Commission is obliged to organize its election fund, an accumulative account, which must be opened no later than 65 days before the election day. Financial support for the preparation and conduct of elections at the expense of budget funds is carried out by the Central Election Commission, and the amount of the corresponding funds is determined by a separate line in the law on the state budget. \n \nNomination of a candidate for deputy begins 119 days and ends 90 days before the election day. \n\nThe form of the election list of candidates for deputies from parties and blocs is approved by the Central Election Commission no later than 120 days before the start of elections. \n\nPre-election campaigning begins 70 days before the elections and ends at 24.00 on the last Friday on the eve of the elections. \n\nA monetary deposit of a party or bloc in the amount of 500 thousand UAH is made in non-cash form to a special account of the Central Election Commission. In case of refusal of registration, the deposited monetary deposit is transferred to the account of the party or bloc within 5 days. After the elections, the monetary deposit is returned only to parties or blocs that participated in the distribution of deputy mandates. \n