Azernews.Az

By Sabina Idayatova

Ukraine's parliamentary election was marred by the ruling Party of the Regions using state resources and facilities for campaigning and by a lack of transparency over how parties were financed, international observers charged Monday.

Ukraine held its parliamentary elections on Sunday, October 28, the third in the history of its independence from the USSR. Voters elected 450 MPs for a five-year term, with half of them elected through the proportional system and the other half through the majority of votes system. With most ballots counted, Party of the Regions of President Victor Yanukovich leads the polls.

Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) criticized Ukraine, calling the election a "step backwards" for democracy in the former Soviet country.

OSCE sent 635 observers to the Ukrainian election, while in total there were several thousand monitors.

The organization cited unfair use of government resources by the ruling party and tilted media coverage as the election's main problems.

"The Oct. 28 parliamentary elections were characterized by the lack of a level playing field caused primarily by the abuse of administrative resources, lack of transparency of campaign and party financing and lack of balanced media coverage. The election, in which President Victor Yanukovich's Regions seems likely to have secured a majority, was also characterized by media coverage weighted in favor of the ruling party," the OSCE mission said in a report.

The OSCE statement said the inability of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko to run as a candidate had also "negatively affected" the election process.

"Considering the abuse of power and the excessive role of money in this election, democratic progress appears to have reversed in Ukraine," said Walburga Habsburg Douglas, the special coordinator who led the OSCE election observation mission, The Associated Press reports.

Nevertheless, observers from GUAM, a regional group which includes Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, said that significant irregularities were not recorded during the elections in Ukraine.

"All citizens without any pressure were able to vote for their candidates and parties. Despite minor flaws, there have not been any rebukes that could significantly affect the results of the voting," GUAM Secretary General Valeri Chechelashvili told a briefing at the Diplomatic Academy under the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. Chechelashvili expressed confidence that the election will be a new impetus to the development of the country.

GUAM observer mission's Elton Mammadov and Chechelashvili also said at the briefing that the electoral process was organized in accordance with international commitments and standards for democratic elections, including those of the OSCE and Council of Europe, as well as the legislation of Ukraine.

The U.S. believes that the parliamentary elections in Ukraine were marred by violations.

"The U.S. government is concerned that the parliamentary elections in Ukraine were a step back as compared with the progress made in the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2010. At that time elections were an important step in Ukraine's democracy," Russian RIA Novosti news agency reports.

The State Department expressed concern about allegations of fraud and falsifications.

"We regret that these...parliamentary elections will not help Ukraine to achieve democratic goals, but we will continue to cooperate with Ukraine in strengthening democratic institutions, the rule of law and democratic reform ... We also reiterate our deep concern over political persecution of opposition leaders, including former Prime Minister [Yulia] Tymoshenko, who is not permitted for the elections. We again call on the authorities to put an immediate end to the persecution of political opponents," the statement said.

Meanwhile, jailed Tymoshenko, head of Fatherland party, held a hunger strike to protest the "electoral fraud" in the voting for the Verkhovna Rada members, a Ukrainian news agency reported citing her lawyer, Serhiy Vlasenko, on Monday.

A district court in the capital Kyiv sentenced the former prime minister to seven years in prison in October 2011 and ordered to reimburse nearly $190 million in damages for abuse of power when signing a gas deal with Russia in 2009.

According to the Central Election Commission, with about 83 percent of the ballots counted, the pro-Russian Party of the Regions of President Yanukovich won 32.12 per cent of the vote, while Fatherland got 23.96 per cent, the Communist Party of Ukraine won 14 per cent, pro-Western party Udar (Punch) led by boxing champion Vitali Klitschko received 13.41 percent, and far-right Svoboda (Freedom) party has 9.49 percent.