The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has already announced its intention to send 800 observers to Ukraine to monitor the parliamentary elections, Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Regions Party MP Ivan Popesku, has said.
“The Regions Party, in accordance with the law on elections, is
inviting international observers to parliamentary elections,” the
party’s press service quoted Popesku as saying.
He said that the OSCE had already announced its decision to send 700
short-term observers and 100 long-term observers to Ukraine.
“The observation missions of the Council of Europe and the European
Parliament, which include current parliamentarians, as well as their
assessments of the electoral process, are also very important to us,” he
said.
Popesku said that the question of sending two missions of observers
to Ukraine and Georgia had been discussed at the last PACE session.
“But representatives of the European People’s Party (EPP) gave
priority to Georgia, and observers will be headed by Chair of the EPP
Group in the Council of Europe, Mr. [Luca] Volonte. The observers in
Ukraine will be headed by Chairman of the Socialist Group in the Council
of Europe, Mr. Andreas Gross,” he said.
The MP said that a statement had been made at the PACE session that
the non-participation in the election of former members of the Ukrainian
government, who are now imprisoned, is not a reason to initially
consider the elections unfair.
“The Ukrainian authorities are interested in holding fair elections.
We reiterated our readiness to cooperate with all international
observers. Moreover, we supported the idea of increasing the number of
election observers from the Council of Europe from 30 to 41 people so
that all political groups could be proportionally represented,” he said.
