With less than a month left until the Ukrainian presidential election, international observers have expressed to Sputnik their concerns that they may be barred from monitoring the vote due to their past activities in the region
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th March, 2019) With less than a month left until the Ukrainian presidential election, international observers have expressed to Sputnik their concerns that they may be barred from monitoring the vote due to their past activities in the region.
On Monday, Andreas Maurer, the head of Die Linke party group of the parliament of Quakenbruck, a town in northwest Germany, said that many of his party members were banned from observing the presidential election in Ukraine.
The presidential election in Ukraine is scheduled for March 31. The campaign was launched on December 31, 2018, along with the registration of candidates. The Ukrainian Election Commission has registered over 40 candidates for this year's race, including incumbent President Petro Poroshenko.
Politicians interviewed by Sputnik said that despite their desire to observe the presidential vote in Ukraine, Kiev viewed them as "unwelcome guests" because they had visited Crimea and observed the November elections in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics.
"I would love to [be an observer] but I can't enter Ukraine anymore. I don't know if I will receive an invitation ... No explanation, but Crimea and Donbas activities will be the reason. No doubt," Frank Creyelman, an honorary member of parliament in Belgium, told Sputnik.
Gianmatteo Ferrari, a member of Italy's Lega party, told Sputnik that his desire to observe the March vote would not be welcomed by Kiev, which has blacklisted him over his visits to Crimea.
"If there was a chance to participate as an international observer in the presidential elections in Ukraine, I would gladly participate. But I will not be able to do it because I visited Crimea twice, in October 2014 and November 2015, and then the Ukrainian authorities have included me on the list of unwelcome guests. So I cannot enter Ukraine," Ferrari said.
United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) member Richard Wood also expressed his concern to Sputnik that he would be unable to observe the presidential election in Ukraine, considering how the Ukrainian ambassador to London tried to have him detained after returning from his trip to Crimea.
"I am indeed an International Observer and would go wherever I was asked to attend. Although, I don't think the Ukraine would let me in as their Ambassador tried to get me arrested here in London after my first visit to the Crimea," Wood said.
The politician also disapproved of Kiev's decision to bar certain EU politicians from observing the upcoming election.
"I think they are trying to hide something," he said, adding that the upcoming election was unlikely to be fair.
"There is absolutely no way the elections will be fair, when you take money from the EU and America, your honesty must be in question. And as the Ukraine had taken billions [from Hungarian-born US billionaire] George Soros, I can't see how it can be fair, as 'he who pays the Piper plays the tune'. I just wish they would learn how corrupt West is buying wars all round the world, purely to destabilize the countries they wish to exploit," Wood stressed.
Last week, Poroshenko's press service said that the president had signed a bill banning Russian observers from the March election. The move was criticized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which said that Kiev's refusal to allow Russian representatives to observe the election violated the obligations of the organization's member states.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin has stressed that Moscow would defend its right to monitor the election.
