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National Democratic Institute 2030 M Street, NW, Fifth Floor Washington DC 20036 Tel: 202.728.5500 Fax: 202.728.5520 www.ndi.org |
CONTACT:
Ann Duncan: (202) 728-5684 (in Washington, DC until December 20)
+38 050 281 8429 (in Ukraine from December 21 to 28)
NDI Ukraine: +38 044 244 3801
In Washington: DC Jenny Cohan (202) 728-6335
NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTE
TO OBSERVE UKRAINE'S REPEAT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL RUN-OFF ELECTION
TO OBSERVE UKRAINE'S REPEAT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL RUN-OFF ELECTION
The National Democratic Institute (NDI) today announced that it is sending another multinational delegation to observe Ukraine's December 26 repeat presidential election. The 30-member delegation will be led by: Abner Mikva, former Member of the U.S. Congress, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals and White House counsel; Bronislaw Geremek, former Foreign Minister of Poland; and Patrick Merloe, NDI Senior Associate and Director of Electoral Programs. The delegation includes elected officials, electoral and human rights experts and civil society leaders from seven countries in Europe, Asia and North America.
NDI sent an observer delegation to the flawed November 21 elections. That delegation concluded that "systematic intimidation, overt manipulation and blatant fraud subverted the legitimacy of the election."
NDI has been working to support the efforts of Ukrainian domestic election monitoring groups that have trained and will deploy thousands of monitors around the country on voting day. In cooperation with Freedom House, NDI has also supported the efforts of a 1,000-member delegation from domestic election monitoring organizations from Eastern Europe and Eurasia. NDI will be in close communication with these groups and with other international observer delegations.
From December 22-24, the delegation will meet in Kyiv with Ukrainian government officials, civil society leaders, electoral authorities, candidates and journalists. Teams of delegates will then deploy to electoral divisions around the country. The day before the election, each team will meet with local election officials, party representatives, and other international and domestic observers to assess the election environment in their deployment sites. On election day, the teams will visit polling places and counting centers in their respective regions.
Following the counting of results, the delegates will reassemble in Kyiv for debriefing and to prepare a preliminary delegation statement, which will be released at 10:00am on Tuesday, December 28 at Unian, Kreshchatyk Street No. 4, Kyiv.
The delegation will conduct its activities in a nonpartisan manner in accordance with Ukrainian law and international standards for election monitoring. NDI recognizes that the citizens of Ukraine will ultimately determine the credibility of the run-off election.
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