KIEV, Sept. 20 – Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko told a senior European official on Monday that President Viktor Yanukovcyh is pushing the country towards authoritarian rule, restricted media and human right violations.

Mevlut Cavusoglu, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, was in Kiev for a meeting with both Tymoshenko and Yanukovych.

“The political situation in Ukraine has changed drastically,” Tymoshenko told Cavusoglu. “The country is moving towards authoritarian rule.”

The complaint comes as Ukraine’s security service, SBU, begins investigating an anonymous phone call in which Tymoshenko had been allegedly warned to stay away from criticizing Yanukovych.

The anonymous caller allegedly told Tymoshenko that she will “cough up blood” if she continues to criticize Yanukovych’s record on democracy and free media among European politicians.

Tymoshenko complained that two branches of her party, Batkivshchyna, have been hijacked by people loyal to the Yanukovych administration. The branches maintain legal independence and that’s why they will be able to nominate candidates – also loyal to the Yanukovych administration - at local elections in Kiev and Lviv.

Cavusoglu told Tymoshenko that the Parliamentary Assembly will send its monitors to Ukraine soon to check on the status of the media in Ukraine before submitting a progress report.

Tymoshenko, who visited Brussels last week, has been persistently focusing on generating international criticism of Yanukovych’s policies.

The efforts highlight a new strategy as politically weakened Tymoshenko has been so far unable to unify opposition groups domestically and to start any massive protests in Ukraine.

The rising international pressure, however, has last month forced Yanukovych to amend a recently approved controversial law regulating upcoming local elections, highlighting his vulnerability.

“We went through a painful process of approving necessary legislation for conducting fair and transparent democratic elections,” Yanukovych told Cavusoglu at a meeting. “It’s very bad when the legislation is changed just ahead of any elections.”

The freedom of speech was another “painful issue” in Ukraine, according to Yanukovych.

“The authorities have not set a task of restricting the freedom of speech,” Yanukovych said. “That’s why I believe this issue must be solved, of course.

He said a new legislation has being drafted to create public television and radio broadcasting.

Yanukovych also invited European election observers to monitor the upcoming local elections throughout Ukraine on Oct. 31.

“There is no person that is more interested that these elections be honest and transparent,” Yanukovych said. (tl/ez)