The European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO) in Ukraine has said that, in general, conditions exist for conducting democratic political campaigns and elections.

"Overall, the framework and essential conditions for holding democratic elections and political campaigns are present in Ukraine for the 2019 presidential election," Head of the ENEMO Mission in Ukraine Zlatko Vujovic said a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.

However, he noted that the cases of violations to the rules of campaigning, allegations of abuse of administrative resources and vote buying, continuous changes in the membership of district election administration and concentrated media ownership, polarized media coverage negatively affect what is otherwise a highly competitive political environment.

In general, Ukraine's Central Election Commission (CEC) operates in an open and collegial manner. However, ENEMO notes that the CEC holds preparatory meetings where the actual deliberation and decision-making takes place at which presence of observers is at the discretion of the CEC and has at times been denied, limiting the transparency of their work, according to ENEMO's first interim monitoring report on the next presidential election.

ENEMO notes that registration of voters and updates to the voter lists overall seem to be processed in a timely and effective manner but concerns may be raised with regard to the low number of IDPs registered as of yet.

ENEMO notes that the overall participation of women candidates remains low, with only four out of 39.

"Observations from the field have shown a considerable level of illegal campaign materials and unfair conditions, smearing of opposing candidates and personalized verbal attacks, damages to campaign materials or candidate headquarters and increased tensions in campaign rallies," the report reads.

ENEMO notes that there is no publicly accessible registry of complaints at any level of election administration.

ENEMO expresses serious concern that voters' rights and possibilities to make an informed choice may be limited, as the information provided to voters by media is often biased and contains different forms of hidden political campaign.

The European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO) presented its first interim report for the period from February 8, 2019 through March 8, 2019.

ENEMO's international observation mission for Ukrainian Presidential Elections 2019 is financially supported by the United States Agency for International Development through the National Democratic Institute, the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Union.

On election day, 158 ENEMO observers plan to observe more than 1,000 polling stations and observe opening, voting and counting procedures as well as the transfer of protocols.