Ukrainian elections proceed normally, says CEC head

The parliamentary elections in Ukraine proceed smoothly, chairman of the Central Elections Commission (CEC) Volodymyr Shapoval has said.

"One gets the impression that during the first 2-2.5 hours the electoral process has proceeded normally," he said at a Sunday briefing at CEC.

He said that by 10:30 a.m. no more than 10 polling stations had not opened.

He did not rule out the possibility that during the time of the briefing the stations had started functioning.

According to him, the failure of polling stations to open on time could be due to the fact that at some stations they put stamps "dropped out" in front of the names of wrong candidates.

Shapoval said that this error was made in 55 constituencies. However, the CEC corrected this situation on Saturday, reprinted ballots and sent them to the regions between 2200 and 2300 on Saturday.

He stressed that such an error was made not only as regards the Svoboda All-Ukrainian Union, but in respect to a number of candidates running in single-seat constituency.

Shapoval denied Svoboda's accusations against the CEC that the commission was trying to rig the elections, calling it "absolute nonsense."

The CEC chairman also said that a voter, born 1941, died at constituency 115. The preliminary diagnosis is blot clot detachment.

A chairman of a district election commission in constituency No. 164 was detained by the commission members while trying to take four protocols, the commission's seal, and the stamp "dropped out" out of the polling station. The incident is under investigation.

In addition, in constituency 218 in Kyiv there was a 45-minute delay in the opening of one of the polls.