Defeated candidate Yulia Tymoshenko “will never recognize” the victory of pro-Russian rival Viktor Yanukovych in Sunday’s Ukrainian presidential election, a local newspaper reported yesterday.
Official results gave former mechanic Yanukovych a three-point margin of victory over Orange Revolution co-leader and Prime Minister Tymoshenko. International monitors said the election was fair but the Tymoshenko has refused to concede.
“I will never recognize the legitimacy of Yanukovych’s victory with such elections,” the Ukrainska Pravda daily cited Tymoshenko as telling a meeting of her party on Monday evening.
PHOTO: EPA
Tymoshenko had instructed her lawyers to prepare to contest the results in court, the newspaper’s Web site reported.
Tymoshenko’s office could not immediately be reached for comment on the report. The prime minister was due to give a news conference later yesterday.
There was no mood in the snow-bound capital Kiev for a repeat of the 2004 street protests co-led by Tymoshenko that overturned a previous Yanukovych victory in an election later declared fraudulent.
But a legal challenge to the narrow margin of victory — 2.9 percent with 98.8 percent of votes counted — could deny Ukraine a swift return to stability and rattle financial markets.
The country of 46 million people has been battered by the economic crisis and badly needs to restart talks with the IMF on a US$16.4 billion bail-out package derailed by breached promises of fiscal restraint.
Tymoshenko cannot catch up with Yanukovych in the vote-count. Just 734,000 votes separated the two sides, in a vote that underscored Ukraine’s deep divide.
As votes trickled in on Sunday evening, the 49-year-old former gas tycoon cried fraud but backed away from an earlier threat to call people out onto the streets.
“The temptation will be there for [Tymoshenko] to make a challenge,” said Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
But monitors declared the election an “impressive display” of democracy and urged a peaceful transition of power. There were no serious irregularities, they said.
Western investors and Ukraine’s powerful neighbor Russia reacted cautiously to the victory of Yanukovych.
Prolonged uncertainty over the outcome could further hurt Ukraine’s sickly economy and delay the resumption of much-needed bail-out cash from the IMF.
The official result signaled a remarkable comeback for Yanukovych, who tapped widespread disillusionment with the Orange Revolution democracy movement that delivered years of infighting instead of prosperity and stability.
A close Yanukovych aide said there were no back-stage contacts with Tymoshenko to strike a deal on a future alliance.
Yanukovych will instead be seeking to forge a coalition to get his own ally into the key role of prime minister, which could require support from the Our Ukraine faction of outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko.
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