to member countries of the CIS since this time. Controversies The election monitoring body has approved many elections which have been heavily criticised by independent observers. The democratic nature of the final round of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election which followed the Orange Revolution and brought into power the former opposition, was questioned by the CIS while the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) found no significant problems. This was the first time that the CIS observation teams challenged the validity of an election, saying that it should be considered illegitimate. On 15 March 2005, the Ukrainian Independent Information Agency quoted Dmytro Svystkov (a spokesman of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry) that Ukraine has suspended its participation in the CIS election monitoring organization. The CIS praised the Uzbekistan parliamentary elections, 2005 as "legitimate, free and transparent" while the OSCE had referred to the Uzbek elections as having fallen "significantly short of OSCE commitments and other international standards for democratic elections". Moldovan authorities refused to invite CIS observers in the 2005 Moldovan parliamentary elections, an action Russia criticised. Many dozens such observers from Belarus and Russia were stopped from reaching Moldova. CIS observers monitored the Tajikistan parliamentary elections, 2005 and in the end declared them "legal, free and transparent." The same elections were pronounced by the OSCE to have failed international standards for democratic elections. Soon after CIS observers hailed the Kyrgyz parliamentary elections of 2005 as "well-organized, free, and fair", as large-scale and often violent demonstrations broke out throughout the country protesting what the opposition called a rigged parliamentary election. In contrast, the OSCE reported that the elections fell short of international standards in many areas. International observers of the Interparliamentary Assembly stated the 2010 local elections in Ukraine were organised well. While the Council of Europe uncovered a number of problems in relation to a new electorate law approved just prior to the elections and the Obama administration criticised the conduct of the elections, saying they "did not meet standards for openness and fairness". Russian-language status Russia has urged that the Russian language receive official status in all of the CIS member states. So far Russian is an official language in only four states: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Russian is also considered an official language in the region of Transnistria and the autonomous region of Gagauzia in Moldova. Viktor Yanukovych, the Moscow-supported presidential candidate in the controversial