International observers of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly said the local elections in Ukraine were organised well. At the same time the Council of Europe stated that it has uncovered a number of problems in relation to a new electorate law approved just prior to the elections. And the OSCE said they will not do any formal statement, reports the news agency Liha. The director of political and legal programmes of the Razumkov Centre Yurij Yakymenko, answering questions about the quality of the local elections and the assessment given by the observers, said: “The overall tone is that in general there are no systemic violations that could affect citizens’ voting on the election day. That is the main assessment. But violations that actually happened were local and short-term”. Also, when speaking on the quality of the observers’ work, the expert said that since the election campaign was shortened the invitation were very last minute. “In addition, the intention was to create special groups and organisations to carry out these observations. And that also happened to be a certain political element”, said Yakymenko. However, speaking about the resolution on Ukraine that EU has postponed till the end of local elections, Yakymenko said that the elections will neither take away nor add any point for Ukraine. “I think all the positions the resolution contained before will remain there i.e. the freedom of speech, democracy, the freedom for opposition… The elections wont prompt a harshening of the resolution.” | 
