You're reading: Kozhara: Premature statements by observers that elections in Ukraine won’t be democratic influencing election campaign

Regions Party MP Leonid Kozhara has said that premature statements by international observers on the non-recognition of the upcoming elections as democratic have a negative effect on the course of the election campaign in Ukraine.

“Such statements do not contribute to the authority of those
organizations that make such statements. Secondly, they have a negative
effect on the whole election campaign in Ukraine, and they are also
becoming a tool in the struggle of political parties in Ukraine,” he
said at a press conference at the press center of the Regions Party in
Kyiv on Wednesday.

Kozhara said that such statements absolutely reproduced the
statements of some opposition parties, “which suggests that some
observers are very closely cooperating with some opposition parties.”

Kozhara said that reports by the missions of observers from Canada,
unfortunately, are already known, and “these reports are already
negative.”

“The head of the Ukrainian World Congress, Ambassador Derek Fraser
[the UWC mission’s chief observer and former Canadian ambassador to
Ukraine] has already announced his position that our elections cannot be
recognized as democratic and those that were conducted in line with
international standards,” Kozhara said.

He said that after the elections in Ukraine there would be “different reports by different missions of foreign observers.”

He said that “there will be reports that will call for the
non-recognition of the elections, and, perhaps, there might be the
opposite ones.”

“It’s especially important for Ukraine to take into account the
opinions of those international organizations to which Ukraine belongs.
First of all, the issue concerns the OSCE, which has already prepared
two very balanced interim reports,” Kozhara said.