PACE election official says Ukrainian government is authoritarian

Andreas Gross, the chair of the Ukraine election-observing delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), told The Ukrainian Week magazine that Ukraine has an authoritarian government led by President Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions of Ukraine. “In my view, it’s not going in that direction – it’s under an authoritarian government,” he said in an interview published online on Nov. 9. The evidence of that is the ruling Party of Regions is abusing Ukraine’s autonomy, allowing the interests of big capital to dominate election law and politics and putting private economic interests above the nation’s general interest.

Zenon Zawada: Gross’ statement crossed the line that European officials previously toed very delicately since the imprisonment of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. With the statement, he’s become among the first European high-ranking officials to use the “a” word to describe the Ukrainian government. Although Gross has demonstrated outspokenness, his words reflect an increasing fatigue among the European leadership with the Ukrainian government, particularly after the fraud demonstrated in vote tabulation of the Oct. 28 parliamentary election. Such mounting frustration could affect the European Union (EU) leadership in its decision to sign the Ukraine-EU Free Trade Area (FTA) agreement this year.