MOSCOW, October 27 (RIA Novosti) – The Ukrainian parliament, Verkhovna Rada, needs to implement various reforms many of which are overdue, head of the PACE Delegation, Christopher Chope, said Monday.
"The Verkhovna Rada must now accept this new mandate in the same spirit and work quickly to implement reforms many of which are long overdue," Chope told journalists in Kiev, following early parliamentary elections in Ukraine.
"That work involves, obviously, the constitution, reforms to the judiciary, reforms to electoral law," Chope added, noting that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) are ready to assist Ukraine with the implementation of "urgent and important" reforms.
Early parliamentary elections were held in Ukraine on Sunday. According to Ukraine's Central Election Commission, the turnout stood at 52.42 percent.
Currently, with some 55 percent of ballots counted, the People's Front has garnered 21.6 percent of the popular vote, and the country's current president's Petro Poroshenko's Bloc is close behind with 21.45 percent, according to the Central Election Commission. The parties are now considering creating a coalition.
The two leading parties are followed by the Samopomich, the Opposition Bloc, Oleh Lyashko's nationalist Radical Party, and Batkivshchyna (Fatherland). Other parties were unable to pass the 5-percent threshold.