Election commission ready to declare Yushchenko winner

Ukraine’s Supreme Court rejected an array of appeals of last month’s presidential election results filed by allies of Viktor Yanukovych, the former prime minister whom preliminary results show lost the vote to Western-leaning reformer Viktor Yushchenko.

The rejections mean the Central Elections Commission can begin the process of issuing final official results of the court-ordered Boxing Day revote.

The first vote in November was annulled by the court after allegations by Yushchenko and his allies that massive fraud had given Yanukovych the victory.

Yushchenko can be inaugurated as the next president of the former Soviet republic only after final results are announced and then published in the government gazette.

The court today rejected eight complaints filed by the Kremlin-backed Yanukovych and his allies, court and elections commission officials said.

“There are no more appeals” in the Supreme Court, commission head Yaroslav Davydovych said.

The decisions paint Yanukovych into an increasingly tight corner. Although he stepped down as prime minister, he has not conceded defeat and is vowing to pursue all possible avenues for challenging the revote’s results.

Earlier, Yanukovych campaign manager Taras Chornovyl said the camp was preparing a lengthy complaint to the Supreme Court that “would prove massive election fraud in the rerun.”

“Our complaint will be the mirror image of Yushchenko’s appeal and it would prove that the establishment of vote results is impossible due to fraud,” Chornovyl said.

He claimed, however, that Yushchenko’s allies in the commission would try to speed up the announcement of final election results before Yanukovych’s lawyers had time to submit their complaints.

Chornovyl also threatened that angry Yanukovych supporters from his stronghold eastern Donetsk region could pour into Kiev to protest an elections commission declaration of Yushchenko as the winner.

“We will not turn to violent actions but we are hearing about radical moves from Donetsk. We will not be able to control the people,” he said.