Government of Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs Gouvernement de l’Ukraine Ministère des Affaires étrangères FFD(2009) 14 English only Strasbourg, 23 October 2009 Council of Europe Forum for the Future of Democracy Kyiv, Ukraine 21-23 October 2009 Electoral Systems: strengthening democracy in the 21st century BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ON THE SPEAKERS AT THE FORUM 2 Mr Šar ūnas ADOMAVI ČIUS , Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lithuania Šar ūnas Adomavi čius worked from 1972-1990 as a lawyer and assisted the Chairman of the Supreme Council of Lithuania for the next two years. From 1992-1993 he served as Deputy Director of the Consular Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and for the next two years as Consul General in Warsaw. From 1999-2003 Mr Adomavi čius, served as Ambassador to the International Organizations in Vienna. From 2005-06 he was Ambassador to Italy and in 2007 he was appointed Permanent Representative to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Mr Igor BOTAN, Executive Director, Association for Participatory Democracy (ADEPT), Moldova . Igor Botan studied the influence of electoral systems on the development of political parties during a fellowship at Georgetown University USA. He served as a consultant to the Department of Political Analysis at the Presidency of the Republic of Moldova until 1994, when he was appointed as Senior Programme Coordinator at the International Foundation for Election Systems. Since 1999 he is the Executive Director of the Association for Participatory Democracy and also works as a political analyst at Radio Free Europe/Romanian Service as well as for The Economist Intelligence Unit and for the BBC. He is currently Director of the Association of Democratic Participation in Chisinau. Mr Mevlüt ÇAVU ŞOĞLU , (TUR, EDG) Vice-President, Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Mevlüt Cavusoglu has been a member of PACE since 2003; he is Vice-President of the Assembly and chairperson for Sub- Committee on Migration. He is a member of the Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Member States of the Council of Europe (Monitoring Committee), and of the Political Affairs Committee. He is also a member of the Sub-Committee on Belarus. Ms Corina CEPOI , Project Director, Independent Journalism Centre, Moldova Corina Cepoi is the director of the Chisinau School of Advanced Journalism www.scoaladejurnalism.md/en , a major project of the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) www.ijc.md/en in Chisinau, Moldova. The Center provides journalism training, legal support and resources for the country’s media. During election campaigns the IJC monitors media coverage of elections. Cepoi has a B.A. in English and MA in Journalism from the State University of Moldova as well as a Master’s degree from the Missouri School of Journalism in the USA. She also was a Chevening scholar at Oxford University. Mr Hendrik DAEMS , (BE, ALDE), member of the Political Affairs Committee, Parliamentary Assembly Hendrik Daems has been a member of PACE since 2007. He is a member of Political Affairs Committee and its Sub- Committee on the Middle East and he is also member of the Committee on Culture, Science and Education and its Sub- Committee on the Cultural Heritage. He is General Rapporteur of the Forum for the Future of Democracy 2009 for the Parliamentary Assembly. Mr Hamazasp DANIELYAN , Monitoring and Evaluation officer, International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), Armenia Hamazasp Danielyan has a PhD in Political Sciences form Yerevan State University, where he is currently assistant professor. In 2008, he served as trial monitor for ODHIR/OSCE. Prior to the Parliamentary Elections in 2007 he coordinated a project aimed at organizing mock elections for the students of Armenia. He has also worked with the Centre for Leadership Development 2006-7, the National Assembly of Armenia (2006), Kentron TV Yerevan (2005) as analyst. He has extensive experience in observing local and national elections in Armenia starting from Presidential elections in 2003. Mr Srdjan DARMANOVIC , member of the Venice Commission, Montenegro Srdjan Darmanovic is the Dean of the Faculty of Political Science, and Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Montenegro. He is President of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CEDEM), a think tank based in Podgorica, Montenegro. He is the author of several books and articles published in international magazines and worked as a columnist in the former Belgrade based independent daily Nasa Borba and the Podgorica based independent weekly Monitor . During the period of 1997-98 he participated in the Aspen Institute’s International Research Group. He testified in 1998 and 2000 as an expert in the hearings before the Helsinki Commission of US Congress. 3 Ms Nel VAN DIJK , Director of the Institute for Political Participation, the Netherlands Nel van Dijk has been director of the Dutch Institute for Political Participation since 2003 working to promote political and social participation, both in the Netherlands and abroad. The institute is well known for the StemWijzer , an internet political preference test. She is a former Green party member (1986-1998) of the European Parliament where she was chair of the Women’s Rights Committee and the Committee for transport and tourism. Ms Natalia DNIPRENKO , Head of the Public Relations Department, the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Natalia Dniprenko worked as an actress and a TV-presenter until she became a press-secretary of the deputy speaker of Ukrainian Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. After that she devoted her efforts to the development of civil society in Ukraine. She has a PhD in Public Administration, having researched the communicative aspect of public information management. Now she is also a lecturer at the National Academy of Public Administration. Ms Lydie ERR, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (LU, SOC) and member of the Venice Commission Lydie Err has been a member of the Chamber of Deputies for the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party since 1984. During 1989-91 she sat as one of the two Vice-Presidents of the Chamber. She served as the Juncker-Poos Ministry Secretary of State in 1998-99. In PACE her roles in the committees and sub-committees include membership of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights; the Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs Committee and the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men where she serves as President of the Sub-Committee on equal participation of women and men in decision-making. Mr Anatoliy FEDORCHUK , Boryspil City Mayor, Ukraine Anatoliy Fedorchuk is Vice-President of the Association of Ukrainian Cities and Municipalities (AUC) and Head of its Medium Cities Section which works for the development of medium-sized municipalities. He graduated from Kyiv State Pedagogical Institute with the diploma in history and social science in 1985 and worked as a school teacher of history for 2 years. Following this he became a public servant and local government official. In 2006 he was elected a Mayor of Boryspil, a city near Kyiv. Dr Peter FERDINAND , University of Warwick, UK Peter Ferdinand is an Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Warwick, where he was also Director of the Centre for Studies in Democratisation. He is former Head of the Asia-Pacific Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in London. He studied at the University of Oxford, the University of Kyiv and the London School of Economics. He has also done research at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. His main research interests are in democratisation, the transitions of former communist states, comparative politics, and the politics and political economy of Pacific Asia. He has edited a book on the Internet and democratisation and he is one of the three authors of Oxford University Press’s recent textbook Introduction to Politics . He was a presenter at workshops of the Forum for the Future of Democracy in Moscow (2006) and Madrid (2008) and he is He is Rapporteur for Workshop 1B this year. Prof. Mark N. FRANKLIN , European University Institute, Florence, Italy Mark Franklin is the Stein Rokkan Professor of Comparative Politics at the European University Institute. A past Guggenheim Fellow and Fulbright Scholar, he founded the Public Opinion and Participation Section of the European Union Studies Association and is a Director of the European Elections Studies project. 4 Mr Jean-Claude FRÉCON , (FR, SOC) Vice-President (Chamber of Local Authorities) Congress of Local and Regional Authorities Jean-Claude Frécon is Head of the French delegation to the Congress. He is a member of the Chamber of Local Authorities and serves in the Congress Bureau and the Institutional Committee. He is a local councillor for Pouilly-lès- Feurs and a member of the Senate of France, representing the Loire department. He is General Rapporteur of the Forum for the Future of Democracy 2009 for the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities. Prof. Michael GALLAGHER , Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland Michael Gallagher is Professor of Comparative Politics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He has also held visiting professorships in New York, Hong Kong and Lille. His work covers both comparative politics and Irish politics. He has written extensively on electoral systems and is co-editor of The Politics of Electoral Systems (Oxford University Press, 2008 and co-author of Representative Government in Modern Europe , 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005). He is a past president of the Political Studies Association of Ireland. Prof. Yvonne GALLIGAN , Queen’s University, Belfast Yvonne Galligan is Director of the Centre for the Advancement of Women in Politics, Director of Research in Governance and Public Policy, and Director of MA Gender and Society programme at Queens University. she is formerly Fulbright Scholar and adjunct Professor at the American University, Washington DC.