Hotel Kuta Bali - The battle for the presidency of Ukraine continued to hang in the balance today as Viktor Yanukovych edged closer to victory and his bitter rival Yuliya Tymoshenko refused to concede defeat.
Mr Yanukovych’s lead over Ms Tymoshenko shrank to 2.4 percentage points this morning with 96 per cent of votes counted. Support for him was 48.39 per cent compared to 46 per cent for Ms Tymoshenko.
Ukraine Elections - An official at the Central Election Commission (CEC) in Kiev predicted that Mr Yanukovych would remain the winner because the votes still to be counted came from his strongholds in the south and east. Analysts said that the narrowness of the victory would encourage Ms Tymoshenko to challenge the result.
In a sign of the tensions, Ms Tymoshenko postponed a press conference at which she was expected to set out her next steps while thousands of Mr Yanukovych’s supporters demonstrated near the election commission headquarters in support of their candidate.
he verdict of international observers later today is not expected to highlight any significant election fraud, potentially undermining claims by Ms Tymoshenko’s campaign that her opponent rigged the ballot. Members of her team claimed to have conducted a parallel count of 85 per cent of votes overnight, which showed that she had a lead of 0.8 of a percentage point.
Ironically, defeat for the heroine of the pro-western Orange revolution might have come at the hands of the man she helped to become President in 2004, her former ally Viktor Yushchenko. President Yushchenko, who was knocked out in the first round with less than 6 per cent of the vote, had urged his supporters to vote “against all” in Sunday’s election.
The CEC returns showed that 4.4 per cent of voters chose “against all”, which would have been enough to have tipped the scale in favour of Ms Tymoshenko, 49. Constant in-fighting between the two leaders was seen as a key factor in voter disillusionment with the Orange cause.
Victory for Mr Yanukovych, 59, represents a stunning comeback for the man whose fraudulent Kremlin-backed election as President in 2004 triggered the Orange uprising, when the result was overturned after thousands of protesters demonstrated in the streets.
He is likely to tilt Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit after the relentlessly pro-Western course pursued by Mr Yushchenko, whose attempts to join the Nato military alliance infuriated Moscow.
But the polarisation of this country of 46 million people may make it difficult for him to govern. A striking feature of the election was the extent to which the Russian-speaking east and south backed Mr Yanukovych, while the pro-European west supported Ms Tymoshenko.
She won 86 per cent support in Lviv, western Ukraine, against just 8 per cent for Mr Yanukovych. He won 90 per cent of the vote in his native Donetsk in the east, while Ms Tymoshenko gained only 6 per cent.
Ms Tymoshenko also won 65 per cent of the vote in the capital Kiev compared to 25 per cent for Mr Yanukovych. In the pro-Russian city of Sevastopol, the Crimean base for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Mr Yanukovych won 84 per cent support.
Mr Yanukovych is set to become the first president since Ukraine won independence in 1991 not to win more than 50 per cent of the vote, another factor likely to encourage Ms Tymoshenko to challenge his legitimacy.
“The situation is developing in favour of going to the courts and some sort of deal,” said Viktor Nebozhenko of the Ukrainian Barometer centre. “It is not really clear who has won. The forces are more or less equal.”
“If it is 3 percentage points or less it is contestable. The temptation will be there for her to make a challenge,” said Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Any prolonged political confrontation threatens to plunge Ukraine’s struggling economy deeper into crisis, however. It shrank 15 per cent last year in the global economic crisis, and Ukraine had to be bailed out by a $16.4 billion (£10.5 billion) loan from the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF is holding up the final $5 billion tranche of the loan because Ukraine did not meet commitments to keep government spending under control. The Government entered 2010 without adopting a budget for the year.
Mr Yanukovich will seek to force Ms Tymoshenko to resign as Prime Minister by a vote of no confidence in Parliament, if he becomes President.
His Party of Regions would then either have to pull together a new majority coalition to establish a government or Mr Yanukovych would have to call a snap parliamentary election.
Mr Yanukovych’s lead over Ms Tymoshenko shrank to 2.4 percentage points this morning with 96 per cent of votes counted. Support for him was 48.39 per cent compared to 46 per cent for Ms Tymoshenko.
Ukraine Elections - An official at the Central Election Commission (CEC) in Kiev predicted that Mr Yanukovych would remain the winner because the votes still to be counted came from his strongholds in the south and east. Analysts said that the narrowness of the victory would encourage Ms Tymoshenko to challenge the result.
In a sign of the tensions, Ms Tymoshenko postponed a press conference at which she was expected to set out her next steps while thousands of Mr Yanukovych’s supporters demonstrated near the election commission headquarters in support of their candidate.
he verdict of international observers later today is not expected to highlight any significant election fraud, potentially undermining claims by Ms Tymoshenko’s campaign that her opponent rigged the ballot. Members of her team claimed to have conducted a parallel count of 85 per cent of votes overnight, which showed that she had a lead of 0.8 of a percentage point.
Ironically, defeat for the heroine of the pro-western Orange revolution might have come at the hands of the man she helped to become President in 2004, her former ally Viktor Yushchenko. President Yushchenko, who was knocked out in the first round with less than 6 per cent of the vote, had urged his supporters to vote “against all” in Sunday’s election.
The CEC returns showed that 4.4 per cent of voters chose “against all”, which would have been enough to have tipped the scale in favour of Ms Tymoshenko, 49. Constant in-fighting between the two leaders was seen as a key factor in voter disillusionment with the Orange cause.
Victory for Mr Yanukovych, 59, represents a stunning comeback for the man whose fraudulent Kremlin-backed election as President in 2004 triggered the Orange uprising, when the result was overturned after thousands of protesters demonstrated in the streets.
He is likely to tilt Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit after the relentlessly pro-Western course pursued by Mr Yushchenko, whose attempts to join the Nato military alliance infuriated Moscow.
But the polarisation of this country of 46 million people may make it difficult for him to govern. A striking feature of the election was the extent to which the Russian-speaking east and south backed Mr Yanukovych, while the pro-European west supported Ms Tymoshenko.
She won 86 per cent support in Lviv, western Ukraine, against just 8 per cent for Mr Yanukovych. He won 90 per cent of the vote in his native Donetsk in the east, while Ms Tymoshenko gained only 6 per cent.
Ms Tymoshenko also won 65 per cent of the vote in the capital Kiev compared to 25 per cent for Mr Yanukovych. In the pro-Russian city of Sevastopol, the Crimean base for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Mr Yanukovych won 84 per cent support.
Mr Yanukovych is set to become the first president since Ukraine won independence in 1991 not to win more than 50 per cent of the vote, another factor likely to encourage Ms Tymoshenko to challenge his legitimacy.
“The situation is developing in favour of going to the courts and some sort of deal,” said Viktor Nebozhenko of the Ukrainian Barometer centre. “It is not really clear who has won. The forces are more or less equal.”
“If it is 3 percentage points or less it is contestable. The temptation will be there for her to make a challenge,” said Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Any prolonged political confrontation threatens to plunge Ukraine’s struggling economy deeper into crisis, however. It shrank 15 per cent last year in the global economic crisis, and Ukraine had to be bailed out by a $16.4 billion (£10.5 billion) loan from the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF is holding up the final $5 billion tranche of the loan because Ukraine did not meet commitments to keep government spending under control. The Government entered 2010 without adopting a budget for the year.
Mr Yanukovich will seek to force Ms Tymoshenko to resign as Prime Minister by a vote of no confidence in Parliament, if he becomes President.
His Party of Regions would then either have to pull together a new majority coalition to establish a government or Mr Yanukovych would have to call a snap parliamentary election.
Tymoshenko refuses to concede defeat in bitter Ukraine elections
![Tymoshenko refuses to concede defeat in bitter Ukraine elections]()
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