Tefft: US concerned about situation with repeat elections in five disputed districts

The United States is concerned about the situation with the repeat election of people's deputies in troubled constituencies, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Tefft has said.

"This remains of concern to us. We believe that new elections at these constituencies should be scheduled, and we've talked about it openly to the Ukrainian authorities," he told journalists in Kyiv on Monday, while commenting on the situation with repeat elections at certain districts.

The diplomat added that the United States supports the EU in its expectations of Ukraine concerning the reform of the judiciary, prosecutor's office and ensuring fair elections.

As reported, on December 29, 2012, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine received a query from 54 MPs requesting an official interpretation of a number of provisions of the law on the election of people's deputies of Ukraine concerning the procedures for appointing rerun elections.

In the parliamentary elections on October 28, 2012, the Central Election Commission recognized the impossibility of establishing the election results in five single-seat districts – Nos. 94 (Obukhiv, Kyiv region), 132 (Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv region), 194 and 197 (Cherkasy region) and 223 (Kyiv, Shevchenkivsky district).

The Verkhovna Rada proposed that the CEC call repeat elections in these districts. However, the CEC said that this problem should be resolved legislatively, as the law does not envisage such grounds for holding of repeat elections as the impossibility of establishing election results.