CIS-EMO mission says parliamentary elections in Ukraine legally incomplete

The CIS-EMO International Election Monitoring Organization has expressed concern about the fact that the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, has not selected a date for repeated parliamentary elections in five constituencies where conflicts occurred during the October elections in Ukraine.

"CIS-EMO is the only international observation mission that has not published its final report on the 2012 parliamentary elections. We are doing this consciously, as we think that these elections are incomplete from the viewpoint of the legislation. There are five constituencies where people's deputies haven't been elected yet due to abuses and infringements on democratic standards and the Ukrainian legislation," organization’s Deputy Director Oleg Vernik said at a press conference on Thursday. "Our mission has made a public statement that we are still monitoring these five constituencies and only when this process is over we will be able to finish and finally close our mission for the 2012 parliamentary elections," he said. "Frankly speaking, we are really concerned about the situation with the Ukrainian parliament dealing very slowly with the elections-related problem in these constituencies, as well as with scheduling of the elections. They constantly put aside the issue, and that's why we cannot consider the elections completed," he said. As reported, in the parliamentary elections on October 28, the Central Election Commission recognized the impossibility of establishing the election results in five single-seat districts. Ukraine's legislation does not foresee the possibility of the non-recognition of election results in single-seat constituencies. Due to this fact the CEC refused to schedule repeated elections in these five constituencies until the problem is regulated legally.