UKRAINE began a partial recount of presidential election votes yesterday amid speculation about how prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s would respond to her defeat.
Final results from Sunday’s fiercely contested ballot gave Mr Yanukovich a victory margin of 3.5 per cent, but Ms Tymoshenko’s party claims fraud was widespread and has demanded a recount in her rival’s southern and eastern stronghold.
The usually voluble Ms Tymoshenko has maintained an uncharacteristic silence since Sunday, however, prompting speculation that she is unsure about the wisdom of a time-consuming and potentially fruitless legal challenge that would prolong Ukraine’s political and economic crises.
“We have already recounted ballots at one polling station in the southern city of Kerch and found out that data sent to the Central Election Committee gave Yanukovich eight percentage points more than he actually had,” said Oleksandr Turchynov, Ms Tymoshenko’s campaign chief.
“Such violations happened also in other regions such as Donetsk and Luhansk,” he claimed contradicting the glowing report that western monitors delivered on the ballot.
Ms Tymoshenko has cancelled several planned news conferences since the election, and postponed a cabinet meeting yesterday to attend a funeral.
A member of her party, Svyatoslav Oliynyk, predicted that she would soon make “a statement accepting the results of the election and crossing to opposition political activity”.
A Ukrainian newspaper has quoted Ms Tymoshenko as saying she would “never accept” victory for Mr Yanukovich, whose attempt to rig a 2004 election sparked the Orange Revolution protests that swept Ms Tymoshenko and outgoing president Viktor Yushchenko into power.
Calling on the prime minister to resign yesterday, Mr Yanukovich said good relations with Russia were vital for Ukraine and that it needed help “from West and East” to solve its economic problems.
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