Doctors urge Tymoshenko end hunger strike

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KIEV, Ukraine, Nov. 10 (UPI) -- Doctors have urged jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to stop her hunger strike over the recent election, prison officials said Saturday.

Tymoshenko, who has been undergoing treatment at a Kharkov clinic for back pains since May, has been on a hunger strike since Oct. 29, to protest what she called vote rigging in the parliamentary election Oct. 28, RIA Novosti reported.

Doctors who conducted a routine medical examination on the former prime minister asked her to discontinue the hunger strike, the country's penitentiary service said.

Tymoshenko is serving a seven-year sentence for a 2009 gas deal with Russia. Tymoshenko's supporters say her prosecution was politically motivated.

She has condemned the recent elections -- in which Ukraine's ruling Party of Regions gained 30 percent of the vote and Tymoshenko's Fatherland party came second with 25.54 percent -- as being the most dishonest in the country's history.