The UKROP party offers Ukrainians a new tool for direct democracy in the form of presidential primaries and takes on successful foreign experience of holding them.
To this end, on June 21 the representatives of the “Ukrainian Association of Patriots” met with the former member of the French Parliament, representative of the Socialist Party of France Christophe Borgel.
The event was attended by the head of the UKROP party secretariat Denys Borysenko, the chairman of the board of “Maidan of Foreign Affairs” Fund, head of Kyiv city organization of UKROP Bohdan Yaremenko, the chairman of the UKROP Advisory Expert Council Dmytro Simansky and other representatives of the political force, as well as the chairman of the party election commission Maria Bilinska.
During the meeting, Christophe Borgel shared with the UKROP members the experience of holding presidential primaries in France, citing examples of large and small political forces. The politician has noted that such a practice could give a good impetus to the development of such a young party as UKROP.
“Since you organize the first primaries in Ukraine, this will probably attract a lot of people,” said Christophe Borgel.
In his turn, Denys Borysenko noted that the “Ukrainian Association of Patriots” is doing everything possible to engage as many citizens as possible.
“For example, in France, political parties can have up to ten thousand polling districts throughout the country. We understand that it is difficult to do this at the present stage in Ukraine. Therefore, in UKROP we consider the possibility to vote both by means of ballots and via the Internet. But in this case it is necessary to secure from possible manipulations,” stressed Denys Borysenko.
For his part, Bohdan Yaremenko emphasized that the presidential primaries of UKROP should become a new instrument of direct democracy for ordinary Ukrainians.
“Ukrainians are disappointed, they want to get more direct democracy, so UKROP offers them the necessary tool. The “Ukrainian Association of Patriots” has a great potential, so the presidential primaries are one the way to reach out to our voters,” stated Bohdan Yaremenko.
According to him, while organizing the internal party elections, the UKROP members are basing on successful practices of many democratic countries.
“The intelligent people learn from mistakes of others, and stupid ones – from their own. We should draw conclusions from both mistakes and successful examples of other countries. This is a good ground for reflection, intellectual debate and the search for the best ways for applying foreign experience to the benefit of our party and Ukraine as a whole,” said Bohdan Yaremenko.
It is to be recalled that the start of the UKROP party presidential primaries was announced during the regular congress of the party, on March 3. The candidate for president from the political force will be elected by an open public vote. Five candidates were registered to participate in the election.
Primaries are a common practice for many democratic countries in the world. They are widely used, in particular, in the United States, Great Britain, Israel, Spain, and more recently in Italy and France.
