Azernews.Az

By Sabina Idayatova

Ukraine's jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko is satisfied with the way her Batkivschyna (Fatherland) party carried out its parliamentary election campaign, head of the Batkivschyna United Opposition council, Arseniy Yatseniuk, said Thursday.

"Discussions were held on specific plans, how we should work in the new parliament, what decisions we should make and how we should fulfill the expectations of the people for today," Yatseniuk told reporters after he and two other opposition leaders met with Tymoshenko at the Kharkiv hospital where she is receiving treatment.

"We definitely asked Tymoshenko to stop the hunger strike because her health is very important for the party. Unfortunately, we were unable to persuade Tymoshenko, and she will continue her hunger strike," Oleksandr Turchynov, deputy head of Batkivschyna United Opposition party, has said.

Tymoshenko went on a hunger strike to protest what is believed to be falsifications in Sunday's parliamentary election. Ukraine's ruling party won the election, according to preliminary tallies.

"Tymoshenko is in militant mood," Turchynov said. "She is convinced that Ukrainian society has made an assessment of this government, and that this government's days are numbered."

Hryhoriy Nemyria, another Batkivschyna United Opposition leader, said Tymoshenko showed particular interest during the meeting in international observers' conclusions about the elections.

"We gave her additional information about the conclusion that these elections unfortunately failed to meet basic democratic standards," Nemyria said. "We discussed consequences of that conclusion for the domestic policy of Ukraine and for Ukraine's relations with the European Union."

Ukrainian English-language newspaper Kyiv Post has published the October 29 letter of Tymoshenko whereby she claims the parliamentary election was rigged as well as announced her hunger strike.

"I express my solidarity with the Ukrainian World Congress, with conclusions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as with the position of Andreas Gross, Head of the PACE Monitoring Group, expressed some weeks ago; and I state clearly that 73 percent of Ukrainian citizens want to remove the Yanukovich authoritarian regime, and gave the mandate for this to all opposition forces," the letter said.

Observers from the OSCE criticized Ukraine, calling the election a "step backwards" for democracy in the former Soviet country. The OSCE mission said in a report, "The Oct. 28 parliamentary elections were characterized by the lack of a level playing field caused primarily by the abuse of administrative resources, lack of transparency of campaign and party financing and lack of balanced media coverage. The election, in which President Victor Yanukovich's Regions seems likely to have secured a majority, was also characterized by media coverage weighted in favor of the ruling party."

Tymoshenko is in custody at a hospital in northeastern Ukraine. She is in the second year of a seven-year prison sentence for abuse of office in concluding a natural gas deal with Russia in 2009, a conviction regarded by some as political persecution.

Earlier this week the United States renewed charges that the Tymoshenko conviction was politically motivated and called on the government of Victor Yanukovich to put an end to what it said was the selective prosecution of political opponents.

According to the Central Election Commission, Ukraine's ruling Party of Regions holds the lead at the parliamentary election, with over 30 percent of the vote, with more than 99 percent of party-list ballots counted. It is followed by Batkivschyna with 25.44 percent. Boxing champion Vitali Klitschko's UDAR Party has 13.91 percent of votes, the Communist Party of Ukraine has 13.21 percent and Svoboda (Freedom) -- 10.41 percent.

The election was held under a mixed system. Voters elected 450 MPs for a five-year term, with half of them elected through the proportional system and the other half through the majority of votes system.

In single-member districts the winner is a candidate who gains the majority of votes, and in the case of identical results a run-off vote is held.