Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych called on defeated rival Yulia Tymoshenko to resign as prime minister on Wednesday, turning up the pressure as her camp contested the result of Sunday’s presidential election.
Setting out his program, Yanukovych said relations with Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union would be his priority. But Ukraine needed help “from West and East” to stabilize its economy and restructure its “financial obligations,” he said.
With all votes counted in the Central Election Commission, Yanukovych ended with 48.95 percent to Tymoshenko’s 45.47 percent, a lead of 3.48 percentage points or some 888,000 votes.
Bond yields jumped after Yanukovych’s statement on financial obligations, indicating negative sentiment on Ukraine, as investors worried that he meant to restructure government debt which would amount to default. But analysts said he was more likely to be talking about restructuring non-sovereign debt.
“I officially turn to the prime minister and call on her to resign and cross to the opposition,” Yanukovych, 59, said in his first policy statement since the election.
“The country does not need another political crisis. The nation has spoken for a change in power and the prime minister should take the right decision and enter opposition,” he said.
The charismatic Tymoshenko has not been seen in public since election night when she urged her regional representatives to check the vote-count carefully and “fight for every vote.”
Her supporters have forced a recount of the vote in some regions to prove what they allege is cynical fraud by the Yanukovych camp. This is denied by the Yanukovych side.
On Wednesday, Tymoshenko cancelled a weekly government meeting and traveled east to Zaporizhya to attend a funeral.
Some of her supporters have expressed doubts about the challenge she is mounting. Some say she would be better off going into opposition and fighting Yanukovych from there, and privately say they are not clear on what her strategy is.
Few people, beyond a tight inner circle, had spoken to her since Sunday night, they said.
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