The Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU) is the only all-Ukrainian NGO that has been performing comprehensive monitoring of all kinds of elections in Ukraine in terms of observance of the national legislation and international standards of fair and democratic election by all stakeholders since 1994. From the official start of Kyiv mayor and Kyiv city council election campaign, the CVU began comprehensive monitoring of the election process. On the polling day, 10 mobile groups of the CVU visited polling stations in all city districts.

CVU observation results are as follows:

• Voting and vote tabulation procedures were free and transparent; observers and reporters had got full access to all election procedures. CVU welcomes the great number of representatives from candidates at polling stations.

• As of the morning of May 26, 2008, CVU sees no reasons for cancellation of Kyiv City Mayor and Kyiv City Council election results. But CVU has received numerous complaints against acts or omissions of election commissions; therefore, courts of competent jurisprudence may invalidate election results.

• CVU expects some delays in vote tabulation because of poor qualifications of polling station commissioners, complicated tabulation procedures, insufficient throughput of district election commissions. Most likely, official results will be declared on the last day of the maximum legitimate term.

• Major violations at the snap Kyiv mayoral election were attempts to bribe voters. Cases of voters’ bribing became more often in two weeks before and continued on the poling day.

• As law-enforcement bodies have detained several perpetrators, gathered information about the bribery system, the public expects that cases be investigated into without delay, prior to announcement of election results. Only prosecution of organizers would prevent mass voters’ bribing during the next election.

• It is quite possible that investigation results might cause cancellation of the election results, if a candidate or his/her authorized representatives are proved to be sponsors of the bribery schemes.

• The main organizational challenge was poor quality of voter’s lists. Numerous technical mistakes were revealed at the majority of polling stations; many voters were missed; some entries were duplicated etc. Young voters (age 18-19), whose names were omitted, filed the bulk of claims.

• CVU is concerned about gathering data on the election turnout. Territorial election commissions failed to collect information about turnout, which may indicate on possible manipulations with turnout figures and juggling with election results.

• There were other technical drawbacks: because of long ballot papers, ballot boxes were stuffed; name of a candidate Klychko was missed in a document prepared for election commissions.

• CVU stresses the need for amending the election law in the part of distribution of funds for campaigning, establishment of new requirements to candidates, change of the local election system. Also, CVU calls the Central Election Commission to speed up compilation of the State voters register in order to prevent future electoral challenges.