You're reading: Ukrainian government, opposition figures urging Brussels to recognize Rada elections as legitimate

Brussels – Representatives of both the Ukrainian authorities and the opposition have urged European politicians to recognize the legitimacy of the upcoming parliamentary elections and pledged that Kyiv's policies of growing closer to the EU won't change after the new parliament is formed. 

Such promises were made in Brussels on Tuesday at a conference on parliamentary elections in Ukraine, organized by the European Policy Centre, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.

“What matters is not the number of lawmakers, but legitimacy, trust and understanding,” the representative of the Ukrainian president in parliament, Yuriy Miroshnychenko, said. According to him, unless these parliamentary elections are recognized as legitimate both by Ukrainians and the European Union, reforms in the country will be impossible.

Miroshnychenko also said that the country’s policy of drawing closer to the European Union won’t change after the parliamentary elections.

A member of the BYT-Batkivschyna faction in Ukraine’s parliament, Andriy Shevchenko, for his part, called the upcoming election “a peaceful change of power” and urged the EU to continue their cooperation with Ukraine, no matter who the president and the prime minister may be.

Speaking about the progress of the current election campaign head of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine Oleksandr Chernenko said that the main problem was the bribery of voters. At the same time, he also criticized calls to declare the current elections invalid.