Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Zsolt Németh on Tuesday called the legitimacy of the outcome of Ukraine's parliamentary elections questionable and qualified the vote as a step back in democratic development.

"It is rather doubtful that the elections were fair and democratic," State Secretary Németh told Parliament's foreign affairs committee, adding that some EU member states went as far as to speak of election fraud.

Ukraine's new election law approved even by the opposition "is bleeding from a thousand wounds", he added. The elections were accompanied by widespread corruption with frequent cases of vote-buying, while access to the media was unbalanced, he said.

State Secretary Németh called the success of the extremist Svodoba (Freedom) party the most alarming, noting that Svoboda uses a strongly anti-Polish and anti-Hungarian rhetoric and the gaining of over 10% of the votes may have a negative impact on Hungarian-Ukrainian relations. In a Monday statement, Hungary's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the general election was incident-free but noted that international observers had criticised "distorting elements" overshadowing the vote.

The statement also mentioned that the results of the elections must be accepted by both the Ukraine opposition and the public.

(Prime Minister’s Office)