Tymoshenko says goal of hunger strike was achieved

“I see that the goal, for the sake of which I started a hunger strike, has been achieved. Nobody will be able to recognize this Verkhovna Rada as legitimate and democratically elected. Therefore I think it’s possible to end my hunger striker on the 18th day, and continue my struggle against the corrupt regime of [President Viktor] Yanukovych by all other means,” Tymoshenko said in a statement that was read out by the ex-premier’s daughter, Yevhenia Tymoshenko, outside the building of Ukrzaliznytsia’s Central Clinical Hospital No. 5 in Kharkiv on Friday.

Tymoshenko noted that she had started her hunger strike in protest against election fraud.

“On October 29, 2012, I started my hunger strike against the total falsification of the parliamentary elections in 2012 by the regime of Yanukovych, and appealed to Ukraine and the democratic world not to recognize these elections as fair and democratic,” reads the statement.

She also noted that various international organizations, as well as civil society organizations that observed parliamentary elections in Ukraine, had not recognized them as meeting democratic standards.

“Today, on November 16, 2012, every citizen of Ukraine knows well that these parliamentary elections were completely rigged. International organizations that monitored the elections, the OSCE, the ODIHR, the EU, the United States, Canada, the international organizations of the Ukrainian diaspora, and public Ukrainian organizations have already recognized that the parliamentary elections in 2012 in Ukraine do not meet democratic standards and are a major step backwards in relation to the recent parliamentary elections in 2006-20067. I want to thank all democratic countries in the European Union, international and civil society organizations, other democratic countries, and Ukrainians, who made a proper and fair assessment of this farce, which the Yanukovych regime called the elections,” reads the statement.