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The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will continue its close cooperation with Ukraine to further consolidate the whole electoral process, says a PACE observation report for the October 28 parliamentary elections, approved on Thursday, UKRINFORM reported.

"The ad hoc committee considers that the Parliamentary Assembly should continue its close co-operation with the Ukrainian Parliament and institutions, by means of its monitoring procedure, and with the Venice Commission, in order to resolve the problems noted during the parliamentary elections on 28 October 2012 and to further consolidate the whole electoral process," said Andreas Gross of Switzerland (Socialist Group), the head of the PACE delegation.

The PACE election observation mission notes that the quality of the electoral lists had improved as compared with previous elections. In particular, in pursuance of the recommendations set out in the Parliamentary Assembly's previous reports on election observation in Ukraine, as well as those of the Venice Commission, the PSCs were prohibited from amending the electoral lists on election day, except for correcting technical errors. No change or adjustment of the electoral lists could be made on the day of the election impacting on any voter's right to vote without a court order or notification of the body responsible for updating the national electoral register. "The ad hoc committee considers the accuracy of the electoral lists as an important factor in building voter confidence in the democratic process," the report said.

The PACE observers note that election day was quiet. "The ad hoc committee noted the well-ordered running of the election. The voting and vote-counting operations were generally conducted in a professional and calm manner," the document said. Also, it is noted that the voters had a choice of different parties and a large number of candidates who had been able to register, thus catering for a wide variety of political views.

All the same, the Assembly monitors draw attention to a number of technical problems they identified in the polling stations. Therefore, the PACE invited the Ukrainian authorities to, inter alia, conduct investigations into all allegations of misuse of administrative resources and other electoral irregularities, and publish the results of these investigations; conduct effective investigations into the irregularities noted in the majority constituencies where the election results had to be cancelled, as well as in other majority constituencies where serious violations of legislation were noted; establish the responsibilities of the authors of these irregularities and any others working behind the scenes, and inform the Assembly of the outcome as soon as possible; take the requisite steps to guarantee media pluralism during electoral campaigns;

The PACE also stressed that the electoral system established in the Law is not that recommended by the Parliamentary Assembly in its Resolution 1862 (2012) on the functioning of democratic institutions in Ukraine, and by the Venice Commission in its joint opinion of October 2011. In its resolution, the Assembly regretted that its main previous recommendations, including the adoption of a unified electoral code and of a regional proportional election system, had not been implemented.

Apart from this, the PACE observation mission noted with satisfaction that the Verkhovna Rada adopted a number of amendments to the Electoral Law in November 2011 in response to several Venice Commission recommendations, including the right of independents to stand for election, unrestricted media access to all the events linked to the elections, the elimination of the provisions authorising voters to be added to the electoral rolls on election day, and the abolition of the parties' discretionary right to dismiss commission members without valid reason. The ad hoc committee also noted the improved quality of the electoral lists as compared with those used for previous elections.

The PACE also called on the Ukrainian authorities to finally adopt a unified electoral code, preferably before the next elections, as recommended by the Assembly in its Resolution 1862 (2012) , as well as by the Venice Commission in its joint opinion of October 2011; reform the electoral system in order to allow small parties to enjoy some measure of electoral success, in particular by improving regional representation and increasing voters' influence over their representatives in parliament, by adopting a multi-constituency proportional representation system based on open party lists, etc.

The October 28 election was conducted under a mixed system.

President Viktor Yanukovich's Party of Regions gained an overall 185 seats in the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada at the election.

According to the Central Election Commission (CEC), 220 members of parliament were elected in the single-mandate districts, including 113 from the Party of Regions and 39 from jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko's opposition Batkivschyna (Fatherland) party. 12 MPs were elected from the nationalist party Svoboda (Freedom), six from UDAR (Punch), three from the United Center, two from the People's Party, one each from the Union party and from the Oleh Liashko's Radical Party, as well as 43 independent candidates.

At the same time, 225 deputies were elected by party lists. 72 of the seats were won by the Party of Regions, 62 by Batkivschyna, 34 by UDAR, 32 by the Communist Party and 25 by Svoboda.

Ukraine's parliamentary elections attracted broad international attention, with 3,800 international and 240,000 local observers registered to monitor the electoral process.

The election commission announced that re-runs will be ordered on Verkhovna Rada's recommendation in the five single-mandate constituencies in Kyiv, Mykolaiv and Cherkasy region, and in the capital Kyiv, where the results could not be established.