You're reading: Yanukovych to Tymoshenko: Bear responsibility as premier, or ‘go back to the kitchen’ as a woman

Kharkiv, January 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) - Regions Party leader Victor Yanukovych has called on his voters to hold Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to account ahead of the presidential election run-off vote.

"I’m told that it’s useless and wrong to argue with a woman. I don’t agree with this. First and foremost, I think that if she is prime minister, she has to be held responsible for everything she says. And if she is a woman, she has to go to the kitchen," Yanukovych said.

"I think that it will be right if we hold Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to account each day before the end of the second round and oblige her to tell us the truth and uncover her misleading stories," he told Regions Party activists in Kharkiv region on Wednesday.

Yanukovych said that his team would face a difficult task of reviving Ukraine’s economy after the presidential election. He also said that the "Orange team should not escape responsibility."

"We should not let them [the Orange team] go. Tymoshenko should not escape somewhere before the election. She has to be held to account," he said.

Yanukovych said that the statements and accusations made being made by the prime minister against him after the first round were humiliating his voters.

Yanukovych said that he respected all voters who supported other candidates.

"We should convince them [the voters] in future through action, not words," he said, adding that the "whole country and the whole world are fed up with the prime minister’s promises."