COPENHAGEN, 1 February 2010 – Around 60 members of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly will arrive in Ukraine this week to observe the second round of the Ukraine presidential election on Sunday, 7 February. The observers will be deployed all over Ukraine.

As in the first election round on 17 January, the Assembly’s President, Joao Soares (Portugal), will lead the OSCE PA delegation. He will also serve again as the OSCE Special Co-ordinator, appointed by the Kazakh Chairman-in-Office, to lead all OSCE short-term observers and to deliver the post-election statement at a press conference scheduled to take place in Kyiv on Monday, 8 February. 

“This was a good and competitive election and very promising for the future of Ukraine’s democracy,” said President Soares after the first election round on 17 January.

Over 800 short term observers were deployed as part of the International Election Observation Mission (IEOM) on 17 January. The observers represented 47 of the 56 OSCE participating States. As in the first round, the OSCE mission will comprise of the PA and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and be joined by parliamentarians from the Council of Europe, NATO, and the European Parliament.