The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, needs to pass a separate law on holding local elections in Mariupol and Krasnoarmiysk, Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Mykhailo Okhendovsky has said.

Okhendovsky discussed the issue at a meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, Canadian Ambassador to Ukraine Roman Waschuk, and UK Ambassador to Ukraine Judith Gough, the CEC press service reported.

The Central Election Commission head said that "only the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine can establish a special legal mechanism to give the voters of Mariupol and Krasnoarmiysk the opportunity to exercise their electoral rights."

He said that local elections were not held in Mariupol and Krasnoarmiysk and the law on local elections does not provide any instructions for such cases.

Okhendovsky blamed the disruption of the vote in Mariupol and Krasnoarmiysk on the illegal inactivity of individual members of the relevant municipal election commissions.

According to him, the lawfulness of the decision concerning the printing of election ballots in Mariupol was established, not only by the CEC, but by a court, whose ruling has already entered into force.

Okhendovsky said that in Krasnoarmiysk, the relevant court ruling was issued five hours before voting and this ruling overturned the town's election commission's resolution not to hand over the ballots to polling stations because they were manufactured by a private entrepreneur.

"The ballots made in order to vote in the town of Krasnoarmiysk fully conformed to the requirements of the law. In spite of this, these ballots, even when obtained by the town election commission, were not transferred to the polling stations," Okhendovsky said.

"In both cases, that of Mariupol and Krasnoarmiysk, this is up to law enforcement agencies to give the further legal assessment of the consequences of the illegal inactivity of individual members of the relevant municipal election commissions. The Central Election Commission has already made a relevant appeal to the law-enforcement agencies, as these actions might be qualified as a criminal offense under Article 157 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine," he added.