KIEV, Nov. 7 – Ukraine’s jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko on Wednesday urged opposition parties to increase pressure on President Viktor Yanukovych who she said was ultimately responsible for sweeping falsifications at recent parliamentary elections.

Tymoshenko, whose letter was delivered by her lawyer Oleksandr Plakhotniuk, said the parties should fight a plan suggested by the Central Election Commission for holding new elections in five contested majority districts.

“Do not let the new elections in the districts where Yanukovych, through falsifications and forcible pressure, has been seeking to steal the choice of the people,” Tymoshenko said in the letter. “Accepting the new election in these circumstances would mean to legitimize the falsifications and to let down the people.”

The three opposition parties, Batkivshchyna, Udar and Svoboda, protested the alleged election fraud and have been keeping pressure on the CEC over the past two days by holding a rally.

Tymoshenko’s statement shows she has been urging the parties to get more active as political crisis has been growing in Ukraine with election results in many majority districts still unclear almost two weeks after the vote.

The parties, which on Monday originally accepted the plan for the new elections in the five districts, on Tuesday had suddenly changed their position, now insisting that elections at 13 districts may have been rigged.

“The opposition got real protocols with stamps and signatures that reflect real results,” Tymoshenko said. “I am asking the opposition to demand re-count of votes according to these protocols.”

Tymoshenko insisted on making attacks against Yanukovych, who had failed to make any comments on the political crisis that has been developing over the past two weeks. The apparent reluctance to make public appearance and comments suggests that Yanukovych did not expect such an outcome.

“Every falsification at the districts has a first name and a last name. People that go for it must bear responsibility,” Tymoshenko said. “But we should realize that these are only those who have implemented them. It is personally Yanukovych who has ordered the falsifications.”

“Let’s not be naïve,” Tymoshenko said. “Without his scenarios nothing like this would have happened.”

Yanukovych made not comment or appearances since the day of the elections on October 28, and only issued a statement on October 29 praising the elections as the step towards democracy.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, who led the ruling Regions Party for the vote, on Wednesday said the elections were the best to have ever carried out by the authorities in Ukraine.

“These were the best organized elections in the history since independence” in 1991, Azarov said at a meeting of the government on Wednesday. “95% of districts had exemplary elections, according to foreign observers. So, what complains can one have against the government? None!”

“Where are the falsifications?” Azarov said. “Who proved that them?”

Opposition figures quickly responded to these comments that are out of touch with reality.

“Did he come from outer space and had never seen what was happening here?” Mykola Tomenko, a deputy speaker of Parliament and a senior figure in the Batkivshchyna party, said. “He may be consciously trying to make us a country that everyone will be laughing at.” (tl/ez)