The first round of the presidential elections held in Ukraine on March 31, 2019, was conducted transparently and effectively, and was mostly in line with Ukrainian legislation and international standards. There were insignificant violations that did not influence the results of voting, the Election Observation Mission of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO) to Ukraine has said.

"ENEMO preliminarily assesses that the elections were conducted in a transparent and efficient manner, mostly in line with Ukrainian laws and international standards. Minor irregularities and violations on Election Day did not appear to affect the outcome of the election, although there were violations of the rules and of campaigning limiting fair competition among candidates," Head of ENEMO Election Observation Mission to Ukraine Zlatko Vujovic said in Kyiv on Tuesday at a press conference after the first round of the presidential elections.

Deputy Head of the Mission Teodora Pop Trajkov said ENEMO observers were at 103 polling stations when they were opened.

"We assessed them as overall orderly and in line with the stipulated procedures," she said, adding, "Minor deviations did not appear to have significantly impacted the [voting] process."

During the Election Day ENEMO observers visited 1,239 polling stations.

"Voting was orderly and without serious procedural violations at 98.7% of the observed polling stations. The secrecy of the vote was respected 97.7% of the observed polling stations by our STO [short-term observers]. However, instances of violations of voter secrecy were also reported, including: more than one individual in the voting booth, voters revealing their vote, voters not being able to vote in secrecy because of improper setup of the [voting] booths, as well as transparent curtains, and voters taking pictures of their marked ballots," she said.

ENEMO Election and Campaign Expert Pierre Peytier, in turn, said ENEMO observed "vote counting procedures were followed properly at 91.3% of polling stations and at 6.8% there were some deviations from the counting procedures. However, observers assessed the observed deviations did not seem to impact the legitimacy of the results." He added that "all cases of negative evaluation were attributed to negligence and not a direct attempt of fraud," saying that the overall assessment of vote counting was positive.

ENEMO was the second largest among the international election observers in Ukraine with 373 people. In addition to the 10 members of the main team in Kyiv, ENEMO accredited 48 long-term observers and 158 short-term observers to the first round of the presidential elections with Ukraine's Central Election Commission, stationing them in pairs in all regions of Ukraine.