During the electoral campaign for the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election Yanukovych at first stated that if he would be elected President he then will do everything in order to make Russian the second state language in Ukraine, but in an interview with Kommersant later during the campaign he stated that the status of Russian in Ukraine "is too politicized" and said that if elected president in 2010 he would "have a real opportunity to adopt a law on languages, which implements the requirements of the European Charter of regional languages". He implied this law would need 226 votes in the Ukrainian parliament (50% of the votes instead of the 75% of the votes needed to change the constitution of Ukraine). After his early 2010 election as President Yanukovych stated (on March 9, 2010) "Ukraine will continue to promote the Ukrainian language as its only state language".