Ukrainians cast their ballots in a special parliamentary election, in which domestic and international observers sought to assure an honest vote. Opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko says she will ask President Viktor Yushchenko to let her form a new government, after an exit poll from Sunday's election shows opposition parties will likely control parliament. VOA Correspondent Peter Fedynsky spoke with several election monitors and precinct workers who identified some potential flaws in the Ukrainian election process.

Casting the vote in Kyiv, 30 Sep 2007

Precinct Director Hanna Mazmaniam says numerous international observers were also present.

Mazmaniam says visitors included journalists, monitors from Russia, the United States, and the Baltic states.

Oleg Mushenko, a Russian election monitor, has been observing Ukrainian elections since 2003. He says voters and the voting process in Ukraine have matured. Mushenko says campaign advertising in this country is not as aggressive as before and notes that Ukrainians are voting in a conscientious manner.

Checking the voter list at Precinct 77 in downtown Kyiv, 30 Sep 2007

At Precinct 99 in a working class neighborhood of Kyiv, Swedish parliamentarian Tone Tingsgaerd, concurred with the Russian observer about the increasingly routine nature of precinct voting in Ukraine.

But Tingsgaerd says she is concerned about what happens between the time a ballot is cast and the time it is counted.

"It should be very easy for everyone here to do that," said Tone Tingsgaerd. "If you have been to a polling station you know, 'I was there, I voted for that and that, I know the result at the polling station. I would like to see that now. Where can I find it?' And this we do not have, in this country or any other of the developing democracies."

Ballot box seal at Precinct 77 in Kyiv, 30 Sep 2007

But the director of Polling Station 99, Vasyl Shepel, warns that Ukrainian exit polls could be manipulated by those behind them.

Exit polls in Ukraine, says Shepel, reflect what is transmitted to the people. And transmission occurs through the press and television, many of which are in the hands of major political parties.

Several of those parties have indicated readiness to protest Sunday's election if the difference between exit polls and the final tally looks suspicious. Precinct Director Shepel said it may take several days to count ballots in rural areas of Ukraine, which could delay the final result.