Yushchenko wants rival party's election ban lifted

UKRAINE:President Viktor Yushchenko has urged Ukrainian officials to reverse a controversial decision to bar the country's most popular pro-western party from running in next month's crucial general election, amid angry street protests and allegations of dirty tricks.

The central election commission banned the party of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko from taking part in the September 30th ballot because its candidates allegedly failed to include full home addresses on registration papers.

Ms Tymoshenko, who led the 2004 "Orange Revolution" with Mr Yushchenko before the pair clashed and parted ways, accuses election officials of trying to sideline her on the orders of prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, who is much closer to Moscow than his rivals.

The early elections were intended to resolve a long and bitter struggle between Mr Yushchenko and Mr Yanukovich, and were expected to herald something of a rapprochement between the president and the charismatic and popular Ms Tymoshenko.

But the exclusion of Ms Tymoshenko's party - which is expected to come second in the polls behind Mr Yanukovich's bloc - would be a huge blow to the ballot's credibility.

"I have called on the central electoral commission to register this political movement," said Mr Yushchenko, whose party is placed third in most opinion polls.

"It seems we have an invented problem," he added.

Ms Tymoshenko accused Mr Yanukovich, whose bid for the presidency was derailed by the Orange Revolution, of "political persecution", and more than 1,000 of her supporters took to the streets of Kiev, Ukraine's capital, to demand her party's reinstatement.

"It is clear what is happening here - this is simply a decision by puppets carrying out an order from Yanukovich," said Ms Tymoshenko of the electoral commission, on which eight of 15 members represent the prime minister's party.

"This is not even medieval, this is just a political con game," she said, adding that she would "probably speak to the democratic contingent on the electoral commission and ask them to boycott commission meetings as long as we are not registered".

Mr Yanukovich's party and his allies on the electoral commission denied any wrongdoing, and accused the media-savvy Ms Tymoshenko of electioneering.

"Who is interested in a scandal around documents filled out the wrong way? Who is building its ratings on scandals? I think the answer is obvious," said Olena Lukash, a senior member of Mr Yanukovich's party.