Yanukovych declares victory in Ukrainian election

Pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych declared victory in Ukraine’s presidential run-off today, but his opponent rejected the claim, saying the vote was too close to call.

Exit polls showed Yanukovych – the main foe of protesters in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution – with a narrow lead in the vote over prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a key figure in those pro-democracy protests.

Ukraine’s Central Election Commission reported today that Yanukovych was ahead 49.2% to 45.2% with 61.7 percent of the vote counted.

If the result stands, a Yanukovych victory could restore much of Moscow’s influence in a country that has laboured to build bridges to the West and closes a chapter in the country’s political history that has been defined by the Orange protests.

Polls show that most Ukrainian voters still support the economic and political goals of the 2004 Orange revolt, but many are deeply disillusioned with the failure of its leaders to carry out promised reforms.

“From this day, a new path opens up for Ukraine,” Yanukovych declared, early today, vowing to “take the country down the path of change”.

Three major exit polls showed Yanukovych winning by a few percentage points, but Tymoshenko said they were unreliable because the race was so close.

“It is too soon to draw any conclusions,” she said, urging supporters to fight for every ballot.

The election commission projected the turnout among Ukraine’s 37 million voters at about 70%, 3.2 percentage points higher than the January 17 first-round vote in which 18 candidates competed.

Early figures showed a heavier turnout in Yanukovych’s strongholds in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east than in Tymoshenko’s districts in the country’s Ukrainian-speaking west.

The National Election Poll exit survey predicted that after the count, Yanukovych would capture 48.5% of the vote to 45.7% for Tymoshenko, with other voters mostly choosing “Against all”.

The race narrowed sharply from the first round vote on January 17, when Yanukovych held a 10% lead.

At Yanukovych’s campaign headquarters, top party officials broke into rapturous applause as they heard the exit polls and Anna German, deputy head of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, called on Tymoshenko to concede.

Tymoshenko has vowed to challenge a vote she claims was rigged in Yanukovych’s favour, as it was in the 2004 election that set off the Orange Revolution.

After weeks of demonstrations, a court threw out the results of that 2000 vote and Yanukovych lost a court-ordered revote to Tymoshenko’s ally, outgoing president Viktor Yushchenko.

This time Yushchenko did not even get enough votes to be part of the run-off.

Tymoshenko’s campaign chief Alexander Turchinov insisted there was still evidence of fraud. “Intrigue still remains in place, we remain certain,” he said.

But Matyas Eorsi, head of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s election observation mission, called the balloting “calm” and “professional” and said there was no evidence the vote had been stolen.

A preliminary report by international monitors is expected today.

Mikhail Okhendovsky, a member of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission, said the board had no evidence of large scale falsification but expected that the loser will challenge the results in court anyway.

“In keeping with the traditions of Ukrainian elections, the loser never accepts defeat,” he said, before the polls closed.

Tymoshenko’s impassioned leadership of the 2004 Orange protests made her an international celebrity and she fought hard in recent weeks to rekindle the heady emotions those days. At one point she debated an empty lectern to dramatise her opponent’s refusal to face her.