There were no systemic violations in the second round of Ukraine's presidential election on February 7, but the country should reform its electoral laws to depoliticize the work of election commissions, Canadian observers have said.

"We saw some violations, but I wouldn't say that they were large-scale... We saw no systemic or mass irregularities in the run-off," the head of the mission of international observers from the Canada Ukraine Foundation and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Bohdan Onischuk, said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.

A preliminary report on the observation of the presidential election in Ukraine was presented at the press conference.

"You have a very politicized structure of election commissions, from the Central Election Commission to district commissions," Onischuk said.

He said that Canadian observers had proposed that Ukraine reform its electoral legislation so as to depoliticize the activity of territorial and district election commissions.

Canadian MP James Bezan, who also attended the press conference, said: "We were astonished at the party staff of election commissions... This creates a conflict of interests at the level of the CEC, territorial and district commissions."

"We propose creating a special civil service at the level of territorial and district election commissions so that Ukraine reforms its electoral legislation and the voting procedure and change the party nature of the activity of territorial and district commissions. The selection of commission members, which is based only on their party sympathies, is unacceptable and creates tensions and concern," he said.

The Canadian observers also said that one of the problems observed in the presidential election run-off was the fact that the Central Election Commission had not registered or accredited any Georgian observers during the second round of voting.

They also said they were surprised at a large amount of funds spent on the presidential election in Ukraine.

"The current presidential election cost each side over $500 million... Ukraine should amend its legislation to cut the expenditure of each candidate to a more acceptable level," reads the report.

The mission of observers from the Canada Ukraine Foundation and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress was represented by 65 short-term observers who monitored the election process in six Ukrainian regions in the first round of voting. For the second round of voting, the Canada Ukraine Foundation sent another 50 observers to six regions who worked with a group of observers from CANADEM, so Canadian observers monitored the election in 24 out of 25 regions, as well as in the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol.