Portnov I. Political parties as subjects of the electoral process in local elections in Ukraine and the European Union (comparative legal analysis)

Thesis for candidate degree in law (PhD) specialty 081 “Law” (08 Law”). Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, 2020. The thesis involves a theoretical and applied study of the place and role political parties have in local elections in Ukraine and in the European Union. The thesis identifies that essential and decisive for being a democratic state governed by the rule of law is to have regular and free elections, which mission is to make the representative bodies of public authorities and to change the elected officials on the basis of democratic procedures of the election process. The election process itself is the process governed by the election laws, which involves the preparation and holding of elections of the representative bodies of public authorities and encompasses the activities that comply with the succession of the election-related actions (procedures) envisaged by the law, which are executed by the entities designated to prepare and hold the elections and to determine and disclose their results. The election process is characterized by the existence of technology infrastructure and form of implementing the constitutional principles of election preparation and safeguarding the voting rights of a human and an individual to the extent of the law-envisaged election actions and procedures that provide for exercising the political right of individuals to elect and be elected to the government and local self-government authorities.