Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA) has evaluated early presidential elections in Ukraine as free, transparent and corresponding to democratic standards.
Head of the International Election Observer Mission, UCCA President, Tamara Olexy said during the press conference in Kyiv that despite minor and rare violations, including advertising on the election day, discrepancies in the lists of voters at several stations and voters’ complaints regarding long lines in Kyiv, the 222 UCCA official observers that had visited over 600 voting stations reported that the election process had been conducted in a free and transparent way corresponding to the laws in effect and democratic standards.
She said that UCCA condemns the methods used by armed separatists supported by Russia to undermine the elections in the east of Ukraine.
According to Olexy, the UCCA welcomed the fact that brave citizens of Donetsk and Luhansk, in spite of violent intimidation, came to vote at the elections. Moreover, the UCCA expressed support for thousands of Ukrainian citizens from Crimea, including Crimean Tatar community, who risked their own safety to cover a long distance to vote.
The UCCA mission head also noted the attempts of Ukrainian government and Central Election Commission that, by her estimation, did their best to organize the elections well.
The UCCA International Election Observer Mission worked in Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Lviv, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy, Zakarpattia, Zaporizhia and Zhytomyr, as well as at foreign voting stations in the United States.
