KIEV, April 1 (Xinhua) -- Members of international election observation missions said Monday that the recent presidential elections in Ukraine were free and well-organized.
While speaking at a press conference of the mission in Kiev, Ilkka Kanerva, president emeritus of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), said the voting was competitive and provided the opportunities for the free expression of the will.
"We can say that in general, the elections were held as free," Kanerva said.
Meanwhile, Mart van de Ven, representative of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said that the electoral process in Ukraine was well organized.
"The elections were organized very well and there were not any restrictions," he said.
Overall, 2,344 international observers from 16 countries and 15 international organizations monitored the voting process in Sunday's elections.
Earlier in the day, the Central Electoral Commission said that the voting will go to a run-off as early official results showed that neither of 39 candidates gained enough votes to secure the victory in the first round.
With 85.70 percent of all ballots counted, Ukrainian actor Volodymyr Zelensky and incumbent President Petro Poroshenko are the two frontrunners.
