Borys Tarasyuk: Ukraine may turn into second Belarus

The chairman of the Verkhovna Rada's Committee on European Integration, Borys Tarasyuk, reports about electoral violations in Ukraine.

He says the electoral campaign in Ukraine is characterized by plenty of acting legislation violations by the authorities that may lead to country's international isolation if recommendations of observers are ignored, UNIAN informs.

The member of parliament supposes that “two scenarios are possible, a positive one and a negative one”. He thinks the first variant is possible only if international observers recognize the Ukrainian election as transparent and democratic. “It would be a miracle: the Ukrainian authorities should became wiser and carry out the final stage of the election race in comliance with the law, which includes the release of Yulia Tymoshenko and Yury Lutsenko. It could give ground to unfreeze the relations with the European Union and lead to signing the European Union Association Agreement and a free trade agreement,” Borys Tarasyuk noted.

In his view, the second scenario looks more probable, “if the Ukrainian authorities continue to ignore opinions of the leading international institutions, Tymoshenko and Lutsenko are not released and elections are rigged on the base of the experience the Party of Regions has from the 2004 and 2010 elections. In this case, the international community will give a negative evaluation of the Ukrainian election, the relations with the EU will remain frozen, visa procedures simplification for Ukrainians will be suspended, which will result in problems with issuing visas to visit the EU countries.”

“As a result, Ukraine will in fact turn into a second Belarus with a probability of imposing personal sanctions against Ukrainian key officials by the EU and the US,” the MP forecasts.