Ukraine's PM files legal protest after poll defeat

UKRAINIAN PRIME minister Yulia Tymoshenko filed a legal protest against opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich’s presidential election victory yesterday, just hours after parliament voted to inaugurate him as head of state next week.

Ms Tymoshenko and her supporters delivered several boxes of evidence to the supreme administrative court in Kiev, to support her claim that Mr Yanukovich’s team rigged this month’s presidential election run-off, which he won by about 3.5 per cent.

Mr Yanukovich (59) rejects her charges, and international monitors gave high praise to the conduct of a ballot that ended the rule of president Viktor Yushchenko, who led the pro-western Orange Revolution alongside Ms Tymoshenko in 2004 but was ineffectual in office. “We hope that this process will be honest, and that our Ukrainian court is also keen to not add to its already poor reputation,” Ms Tymoshenko said.

“I’m sure that a fair hearing is necessary above all for Yanukovich . . . If the court doesn’t grant the opportunity to recount votes in polling stations where doubts exist and show the country the real situation, then it is redundant to talk about justice in our country.”

Ms Tymoshenko (49) also claimed that the prosecutor general’s office was putting pressure on Ukrainian courts on the orders of Mr Yanukovich’s party, and she vowed to “do everything, even the impossible, to allow the courts to work honestly”.

The parliament in Kiev voted to inaugurate Mr Yanukovich as president on February 25th, regardless of Ms Tymoshenko’s legal action. Her campaign manager called Mr Yanukovich’s push for an early inauguration date an attempt to cover up electoral fraud and usurp power. In contrast to 2004, when western powers supported Ms Tymoshenko and Mr Yushchenko in their successful bid to overturn Mr Yanukovich’s fraudulent election “victory”, this year the EU and US were quick to congratulate the former mechanic on his success.

Mr Yanukovich has tried to dismiss fears that he is a Kremlin “puppet” who will help Russia regain its traditional hold over Ukraine, following a period in which Mr Yushchenko and Ms Tymoshenko sought to weaken Moscow’s influence and guide their country towards EU membership.

Mr Yanukovich refuses to work with Ms Tymoshenko as premier and his allies are already holding talks with other parties to form a new government and appoint a new prime minister.

One analyst saw risks for Ms Tymoshenko if she continued her defiance. “The clear danger in such a strategy is that she is tarnished as not being willing to accept the democratic choice of the people of Ukraine,” Tim Ash of Royal Bank of Scotland wrote in a research note. “She will have to weigh the pro and cons . . . carefully, as the Tymoshenko brand, which is iconic, could be terminally damaged in the process.”

Mr Yanukovich is expected to tilt Ukraine back towards Russia after five years of estrangement under the pro-Western Mr Yushchenko.

Mr Yanukovich said on Russian television at the weekend Kiev may allow Moscow to station its Black Sea Fleet in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol beyond a scheduled withdrawal in 2017.

He also said he would revive the idea of a gas consortium that would allow Moscow to co-manage Ukrainian pipelines.

At a parting news conference, Mr Yushchenko said appointing Ms Tymoshenko – his ally in the 2004 Orange Revolution that brought him to power – as prime minister in 2007 had been his “greatest mistake”.

Ms Tymoshenko and Mr Yanukovich, he said, were part of a Kremlin plot aimed at Ukrainian independence. “It is a defeat for Ukraine’s European course,” he said. – (Additional reporting: Reuters)