1554 international observers from 14 countries and 14 international organizations will watch 2015 local elections on 25 October, what is 3 times more than in 2010 local elections. In 2010, 490 observers from 11 countries and 14 international organizations watched the election process in Ukraine.
On 19 October, a regular meeting of the Central Election Commission was held, chaired by Commission Head Mykhailo Okhendovskyi. The CEC registered 389 official international observers on this meeting, and finished the registering official international observers for local elections scheduled for 25 October 2015. The total number of international official observers registered for 2015 local elections reaches 1554 persons, 134 of which represent 14 foreign states and 1420 – international organizations.
The number of OSCE international observers has increased in 171 times (!) (in 2010, only 4 persons form OSCE, 684 persons from the Office for Democratic Institution and Human Rights), which is now the largest officially registered international observation mission. The second largest observation mission in European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO), represented by 383 observers. Then, the Committee for Open Democracy (88 registered observers), Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (72 observers) and representatives of the Council of Europe (55).
(Photo: website of the CEC)
It should be mentioned that official observers from the Russian Federation are not going to observer these elections in contrast to 2010 local elections (there were 29 persons in 2010). However, Russian citizens will participate in observation efforts of international organizations (for example, OSCE-ODIHR, European Platform for Democratic Elections etc.). Besides that, Commonwealth of the Independent States - Election Monitoring Organization (CIS-EMO) NGO (65 observers in 2010), and Interparliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (10) are not participating in election observation efforts in Ukraine this year.
