UKRAINE: The key legal obstacle to Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko becoming the next president of Ukraine was removed yesterday when the Supreme Court threw out complaints about alleged voter fraud.
The complaints were lodged by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, who claimed Mr Yushchenko won Sunday's re-run vote after massive election violations.
Judges threw out all four complaints, echoing the view of international monitors that the ballot had been free and fair.
Mr Yushchenko won 52 per cent of Sunday's vote, against 44 per cent for Mr Yanukovich, in a re-run of their November election that was declared invalid after weeks of opposition protests.
But Mr Yanukovich has lodged a second complaint of fraud, presenting 27 volumes of alleged violations to the Central Election Commission.
The commission is expected to follow the Supreme Court judges in rejecting the complaint, but their deliberations mean further delays to Mr Yushchenko's inauguration, deepening the country's constitutional crisis. The crisis is caused because Ukraine is, in effect, without a government.
Earlier this month Mr Yanukovich lost a no-confidence vote in parliament, but the outgoing president, Mr Leonid Kuchma - his ally - has refused to sign the dismissal order.
Mr Yushchenko is expected to make the signing of this dismissal order his first priority but he will not now be inaugurated until January 12th at the earliest.
This leaves Ukraine in deadlock, with Mr Yanukovich insisting he is the prime minister, and the opposition refusing to accept his authority and promising to barricade government offices against him, as they did earlier this week.
Opposition deputy leader Mr Petro Poroshenko said he feared that if Mr Yanukovich was allowed to exercise power, even for a few days, he could cause mischief in an already tottering governmental machine.
"He still tries to insist to sit a couple more days in government," Mr Poroshenko told The Irish Times. "I think it's extremely dangerous for the government. We have six billion Grivna [Ukraine currency, about one billion euro] in our treasury. We keep an eye on it."
Meanwhile, Mr Yanukovich continues to hold cabinet meetings at different addresses, but Mr Poroshenko said his powers are severely limited.