Canadian monitors praise conduct of elections (04/02/06)

Canadian monitors praise conduct of elections

WINNIPEG - Canadian election observers monitoring Ukraine's parliamentary elections on March 26 reported they received excellent cooperation from the country's election control bodies and political parties as the lengthy job of counting votes began in earnest.

"Generally, we have received superb cooperation from Ukraine's central and local election commissions and from all parties across the country," said Paul Grod, a Toronto lawyer who is mission chief for the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), the Winnipeg-based national organization representing 1 million Canadians of Ukrainian ancestry.

More than 150 Canadians signed on with the UCC to be a part of an election observer mission. The Canadian contingent visited more than 2,000 of Ukraine's 33,000 polling stations in seven regions of the country.

Mr. Grod said it will take at least another day until final results are known. The lengthy vote count is the result of the fact that voters were electing representatives for five levels of national and regional government.

Unlike Canada's first-past-the-post method of elections, Ukraine has adopted a form of proportional representation from which elected candidates are selected from party lists.

"The fact that Ukrainians were voting for five different levels of public representatives contributed to lengthy line-ups at the polls, and will probably contribute to lower voter turnout overall," said Mr. Grod.

"As representatives of Ukrainian Canadians our mandate was to contribute to the conduct of free and fair elections and to provide and independent and impartial observation," Mr. Grod noted.

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