Presidential Election, 17 January and 7 February 2010

Following an invitation from Ukraine's Foreign Ministry, ODIHR deployed an election observation mission in Ukraine on 24 November 2009 to observe the presidential election on 17 January 2010.

Headed by Ambassador Heidi Tagliavini of Switzerland, the mission consisted of 23 analysts based in Kyiv and 60 long-term observers deployed throughout Ukraine. For the first round on 17 January the OSCE/ODIHR deployed about 600 short-term observers seconded by participating States. For the second round on 7 February, approximately 600 observers from 46 OSCE participating States were deployed.

According to the mission's final report: "The presidential election met most OSCE commitments and other international standards for democratic elections and consolidated progress achieved since 2004. The process was transparent and offered voters a genuine choice between candidates representing diverse political views. However, unsubstantiated allegations of large-scale electoral fraud negatively affected the election atmosphere and voter confidence in the process."

For election-day observation, the mission joined efforts with observer delegations from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

Previous elections

ODIHR has observed a number of elections in Ukraine, including:
- 1998 parliamentary elections
- 1999 presidential election
- 2002 parliamentary elections
- 2004 presidential election
- 2006 and 2007 parliamentary elections

ODIHR, together with the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, has also issued a joint opinion on the Law on Amending Some Legislative Acts on the Election of the President of Ukraine.