Ukraine elects head of Election Commission

Ukraine’s presidential representative in the Constitutional Court has been elected chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC), the body’s press service head said Saturday.

Volodymyr Shapoval, a Constitutional Court judge since 1996 and the president’s envoy to the Court since 2005, was backed by 14 out of 15 CEC members.

 Ukraine’s parliament Friday dismissed all members of the CEC and approved the new composition in line with an agreement reached between the president, the prime minister and the speaker of the Supreme Court seeking to end the political crisis simmering since the president dismissed parliament and called snap elections on April 2.

 Yushchenko has been pressing for parliament’s dissolution and early elections following the defection of 11 opposition members to the premier-led ruling coalition in parliament, which the president said was in circumvention of the Constitution.