KIEV, September 18. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine's Central Election Commission (CEC) member has questioned the need for presence of Russia's State Duma observers at the forthcoming elections to the Verkhovna Rada.
Andriy Magera, CEC Deputy Chairman, told ITAR-TASS that Russian parliamentarians are not representatives of an international organization. "They do not represent an international organization, they are representatives of the parliament of another country," he said.
Earlier, on the eve of the visit of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to Ottawa, an official from the Canadian Foreign Ministry stated that they intended to send more than 300 observers, including 12 members of parliament, to Ukraine's elections.
Last week, on September 13, Sergey Naryshkin, Speaker of the State Duma, did not rule it out that Stae Duma members would travel to Ukraine to monitor the elections to the Verkhovna Rada. However, he expressed doubts that Russian parliamentarians might be given the necessary guarantees of safety and freedom of speech.
By now, Ukraine's CEC has given the right to accreditation as election monitors to 32 public organizations of Ukraine. International observers have not yet received accreditation so far. Elections to the Verkhovna Rada are scheduled for October 26.