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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: Jean Freedberg +38 050 281 8429
NDI Ukraine +38 044 244 3801
email: jfreedberg@ndi.org
NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTE TO OBSERVE UKRAINE'S
SECOND ROUND PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
SECOND ROUND PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
The National Democratic Institute (NDI) today announced that it is sending a multinational delegation to observe Ukraine's November 21 second round presidential election. The 35-member delegation is led by: Abner Mikva, former Member of the U.S. Congress, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, and White House counsel; Alexander Longolious, former Speaker Pro Tem of the Berlin Parliament; David Collonette, former Canadian Minister of Defense and Minister of Transport; and Kenneth Wollack, NDI President. The delegation includes elected officials, electoral and human rights experts and civil society leaders from seven countries in Europe, Asia and North America.
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 November 17-19, 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, long-term 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, November 23. [Please call for location]
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.