22 November 2022, Tuesday, 18:29 173

CEC Does Not Check Candidates For MPs For Russian Citizenship

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

The Central Election Commission (CEC) states that it did not check and is not checking the candidates for Members of Parliament for the presence of Russian citizenship in addition to Ukrainian citizenship.

This is stated in the response of the CEC to the request of the Ukrainian News Agency.

The CEC noted that, in accordance with the norms of the election legislation, it verifies persons running as candidates for MPs only for compliance with the requirements of the law, i.e. for their compliance with election criteria, in particular, whether the candidate has Ukrainian citizenship.

Such verification is carried out based on the documents submitted for the registration of candidates for MPs and by sending requests to the relevant state bodies that implement state policy in the relevant field, in particular to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the State Border Guard Service.

The CEC emphasizes that, according to the current legislation, the commission is not authorized to check whether candidates for MPs have citizenship of another state (other states).

Thus, there is no rule in the legislation that a person with dual, including Russian, citizenship cannot be a Member of Parliament of Ukraine.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the Security Service of Ukraine emphasizes that the presence of dual citizenship, including Russian, among officials poses a potential threat to the national security of Ukraine.

There is no information in the President's Office regarding the possible assignment of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to law enforcement agencies to check officials for dual citizenship, including Russian citizenship.