ADMINISTRATION OF ELECTION AND REFERENDUM PROCESSES IN THE REGIONS OF UKRAINE IN THE POST-WAR PERIOD: SECURITY AND LEGITIMATION CHALLENGES
ADMINISTRATION OF ELECTION AND REFERENDUM PROCESSES IN THE REGIONS OF UKRAINE IN THE POST-WAR PERIOD: SECURITY AND LEGITIMATION CHALLENGES

Summary/Abstract: As a result of Russian aggression, the electoral infrastructure of Ukraine was destroyed and needs to be restored and improved. Russian aggression not only created many new security and legitimacy challenges, but also actualized those problems that remained unresolved for a long time. Immediately after the end of the war, several election processes await Ukraine, so the objective of the paper is to identify potential threats and search for the most optimal model of administration of future election and referendum processes. During the research, the authors used a number of general theoretical methods and scientific approaches to the study of electoral/referendum legitimization of power and the issue of election administration. The paper contains a detailed analysis of the impact of the Russian aggression and martial law conditions on the post-war election and referendum processes, outlines key security and legitimacy challenges and possible ways to counter them. The results of the study make it possible to divide the main security and legitimacy challenges into three groups: 1) challenges of the election/referendum organization process; 2) threats of the Russian Federation interference in the election/referendum process; 3) challenges of ensuring the principles of democracy, transparency and openness of elections/referendum. The authors of the study proposed a number of practical recommendations that will allow eliminating/minimizing the negative effect of security and legitimation challenges.

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