Kyiv, Ukraine (23:30)- The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) has deployed the third largest international observer mission to monitor the 2014 Parliamentary Elections in Ukraine, after those of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO).
The UWC Mission includes 227 observers from 19 countries who are monitoring the vote in Ukraine and at diplomatic missions around the world. The UWC Mission is headed by UWC Third Vice President Petro Sztyk and the Chief Observer is Olena Koszarny, Chair of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Advisory Board in Ukraine. The UWC Mission is also cooperating with the observer mission of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, a UWC member organization with 105 accredited observers, bringing the combined observer group of the affiliated organizations to over 330 observers.
In total, the UWC Mission was present in 27 electoral precincts, including 3 electoral precincts in the Donetsk region. As a result, UWC Mission observers monitored the vote in over 1200 polling stations situated in hundreds of cities and surrounding villages throughout Ukraine, including Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Mykolayivka and Krasniy Lyman in the Donetsk region.
UWC observers recorded that the elections were being conducted in an orderly manner. Isolated infractions have been reported, the most common being:
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campaigning at the polling stations and outside them, including billboard advertising for political parties; -
delays in opening the polling stations; -
missing names of voters on Precinct Election Commission (PEC) voters’ lists; -
inconsistent level of competence of Precinct Election Commissions; -
inappropriately sealed ballot boxes; -
distribution of ballots without the appropriate documentation; and -
observers representing parties and candidates actively interacting with voters preparing to drop their ballots into the ballot boxes.
UWC observers will remain at polling stations in electoral districts throughout Ukraine until such time that all votes are counted.
Press Conferences to announce the preliminary findings of the UWC Election Observation Mission will be held:
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27 October at 12:00 at the Ukraine Crisis Media Center (Hotel «Ukrayina», 3rd floor, 4 Instytuts’ka Street, Kyiv, Ukraine; and -
27 October at 13:30 at UNIAN Media Center(4 Khreshchatyk St., Kyiv, Ukraine)
