The European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations: Ukrainian voters casted their ballots in a transparent and efficient manner”

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Kyiv, October 27, 2014 – “The preliminary assessment of ENEMO is that the polling on October 26, was conducted in a transparent and efficient manner, generally in compliance with the international standards. Certain irregularities that did not have significant influence on the outcome of the results were observed, especially during the campaign period.” informed Mr. Srdjan Pavlicic, Head of the ENEMO Mission to Ukraine 2014, at a briefing in the Ukraine Crisis Media Center.

Election authorities, especially the Central Election Commission (CEC) made extraordinary efforts in order to conduct elections and to allow the voters to cast their votes in complex political and security environment, by meeting the shortened deadlines due to the character of this election.

ENEMO acknowledges the efforts of all election stakeholders, including citizens of Ukraine, which contributed towards organizing and conducting calm and transparent voting process. “However, the process of tabulation and announcing of the official results is still to be conducted. Therefore ENEMO encourages all participants in election process to stay calm and restraint from any kind of unethical behavior”- added Mr. Pavlicic.

The ENEMO mission underlines the need for further continuation of open and inclusive electoral reform discussion with participation of various stakeholders, including civil society, in order to improve and harmonize electoral legislation. Moreover, ENEMO recommends professionalization of district election administration, at least on management level, which will contribute towards raising institutional capacity of DECs.

ENEMO observers visited 101 polling stations during the opening stage. Observers in total made 1250 visits to polling stations and followed the counting in 99 polling stations and transfer of results to 99 DECs.

The European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO) has deployed 206 short-term observers to monitor the October 26, 2014 Early Parliamentary Elections in Ukraine. All stages of the voting process, including the opening, polling, the counting of the votes and the tabulation of results in polling stations and district election commissions (DECs) were monitored.