The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry hopes for fruitful cooperation with the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe (CLRA-CE) in improving the national electoral legislation, the director of the ministry's information policy department, Oleh Voloshyn, told Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.
"The Foreign Ministry believes that the recommendations given by the CLRA-CE following the monitoring of the local elections on Oct. 31 this year will serve as reliable support during the development of democratic institutions in our country. The main recommendation given by the Council of Europe after the 2010 [local election] campaign is already being implemented – a working group has currently been created under Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s decree in order to improve the electoral legislation. It will systematically remove the shortcomings of the national legal framework, as pointed out by European experts," he said.
Voloshyn said that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry would like to draw attention to the recognition by a congress mission of the fact that the president and the Cabinet of Ministers had given a high priority to the local authorities in the process of preparing for and conducting the elections on Oct. 31.
"Also significant is the absence in a Nov. 2 press release by a mission of Council of Europe observers of complaints about problems with the fundamental components of fair elections – open competition between many candidates and parties and free access for all political forces to the media," he said.
This means that Ukraine has demonstrated the successful functioning of all key features of a democratic political system that is recognized by all delegations of international observers who visited the country to monitor the elections, Voloshyn said.
