Rada speaker calling on MPs to set date of presidential elections, reduce election campaign duration

12:25

Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn has called on MPs not to delay the issue of setting the date of the presidential elections and said he is ready to submit a draft resolution on holding the elections on January 17 next year.

"When I receive the Constitutional Court's decision, I will instruct the relevant committee to prepare the respective resolution, and if this is not done I will submit such a resolution myself. Why should we drag this out? The date [of the elections] is obvious and can be only be January 17, 2010," Lytvyn told reporters in St. Petersburg in Russia on Thursday.

At the same time, he said it was difficult to say when the Verkhovna Rada would consider the respective statement.

"I believe that apart from everything else we should pass one more decision to set the date when the Verkhovna Rada is to consider the amendments to the law on the elections of the president, as without it there will be no use in holding them," the speaker said.

He stressed that it is necessary to reduce the duration of the election campaign from 120 days to 90 or even 70 days.