The U.S. State Department has expressed concern over parliamentary elections in Ukraine which were held last Sunday. According to official results, the ruling "Party of regions" won the vote with 33% of votes after counting 70% of results.
Aannouncement made by the State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said that the parliamentary elections in Uraine were "a step backwards from progress made during previous parliamentary elections and the 2010 presidential election, elections that had marked important steps forward for Ukraine's democracy."
We share the concerns cited in today's preliminary report from observation missions from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
Toner added that in this case especially worrying is " the use of government resources to favor ruling party candidates, interference to media access, and harassment of opposition candidates."
" While election day was peaceful overall and observed by a large number of domestic and international observers, we are troubled by allegations of fraud and falsification in the voting process and tabulation, by the disparity between preliminary results from the Central Election Commission and parallel vote tabulations, and by the Central Election Commission's decision not to release precinct results."
"We also reiterate our deep concern that the politically motivated convictions of opposition leaders, including of former Prime Minister Tymoshenko, prevented them from standing in these elections. We again call on the Government to put an immediate end to the selective prosecution of political opponents."
The former Prime Minister of Ukraine Timoshenko announced a hunger strike in protest of vote rigging.