Most Ukrainians oppose term limits for mayors – poll
The majority of Ukrainians surveyed - 67.7% - have not heard anything about the legislative initiative to limit the number of terms of office of mayors, which means that if a person has already served two full terms as mayor, he or she will no longer have the right to run for the position.
This is evidenced by the data of a sociological survey conducted by Sociopolis on May 3-12, Censor.NET reports.
At the same time, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians surveyed - 67.2% - agree with the statement that if the mayor works effectively, he should have the right to run for office as many times as he wants, and only the residents of the community should decide whether or not to elect him again.
Residents of settlements and villages and women are relatively more likely to agree with this statement (compared to all respondents), while residents of oblast centers and men are relatively less likely to agree with it. At the same time, the same category that supports the mayors is currently favorably assessing the performance of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy - more than two-thirds of the polled (67.8%) said they assessed his work as President as completely positive or rather positive - this position was expressed by residents of villages and towns and cities that are not oblast centers, women, and younger respondents, while the President's performance was assessed relatively worse by residents of oblast centers, men, and middle-aged respondents.
The majority of Ukrainian respondents (54.6%) would have a negative attitude to the situation if the head of the military administration was appointed by the central government instead of the elected head of the community. Approximately half as many respondents (29.7%) would have a rather or completely positive attitude to such a situation. Only 5.2% of respondents believe that the head of their community should fully support the course of the central government, even if it contradicts the interests of the community. The overwhelming majority - 51.4% - support the idea that the head of their community should have their own position and initiatives, even if they contradict the course of the central government, but if it is in the interests of their community.
As a reminder, in April, former MP Oleksandr Chernenko circulated the text of a draft law limiting the number of terms of office for city mayors.
"Limit the number of terms to a maximum of two in a lifetime. Not in a row. In general... The initiative looks like a universal one, but it primarily affects those who have long been in power on the ground. If they find the votes for this initiative, we may get a complete restart of local government in the next local elections," Chernenko wrote.
The draft law contains a provision: "if a person has already held the position of mayor for two full terms before the entry into force of this law, such a person is not eligible to run for the relevant position after the entry into force of this law." Currently, there are many long-serving mayors of large cities: Vitali Klitschko (mayor of Kyiv since 2014), Hennadii Trukhanov (mayor of Odesa since 2014), Borys Filatov (mayor of Dnipro since 2015), Andrii Sadovyi (mayor of Lviv since 2006), Ruslan Martsinkiv (mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk since 2015), and Serhii Nadal (mayor of Ternopil since 2010).
The draft law mentioned by the former MP has not yet been registered on the Verkhovna Rada portal, although he has published a draft. The title of the draft law is "Law of Ukraine on Amendments to the Electoral Code of Ukraine on Limiting the Number of Terms of Office of the Mayor."
