Losing candidate makes final appeal to Supreme Court

The Ukrainian Supreme Court began hearings today on what appeared to be the last appeal by former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych over alleged fraud in the presidential election he lost to Viktor Yushchenko.

Yanukovych, who took 44.2% of votes against Yushchenko’s 51.9% in the December 26 election, has called on the court to annul the results and order a second rerun.

Much of the alleged fraud was connected with misuse of absentee voting procedures that allowed multiple ballots to be cast. After that election, the parliament passed election reforms that eliminated absentee ballots – but that provision was overturned by the Constitutional Court the day before the December voting.

That left little time for many old and ailing people to make voting arrangements. Yanukovych’s appeal focuses on that issue, claiming that large numbers of Ukrainians were denied their right to vote.

The court today rejected a request by Yanukovych’s camp for one of the judges to be excluded for saying the court had already dealt with major elements of the complaint.

Ahead of the hearing, Yanukovych accused the court of ”adopting a biased position beforehand”.

The court previously had rejected an array of minor appeals from the Yanukovych camp.

“I and millions of my voters were thus deprived from our right to appeal to the court which constitutes a serious violation of the constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights,” said Kremlin favourite Yanukovich.

Yushchenko, a Western-leaning reformer, cannot be inaugurated until his rival has exhausted his appeals.

A high-ranking, pro-Yushchenko official said the appeal was “just a legal diversion aimed at delaying the inauguration”.

The Foreign Ministry has asked foreign dignitaries who are planning to witness Yushchenko’s inauguration to ”understand the circumstances” and keep their schedules flexible.

Late last week, Yulia Tymoshenko a key opposition leader and Yushchenko ally, said that the inauguration was expected this week.