UKRAINE’S MAIN opposition leader, Viktor Yanukovich, will face prime minister and bitter enemy Yulia Tymoshenko in a run-off for the presidency, exit polls from yesterday’s election suggested.
Two polls gave Mr Yanukovich between 32 and 35 per cent of votes against 26 to 27 per cent for Ms Tymoshenko, a closer-than-predicted result that gives her strong hope of turning the tables in a run-off that is expected to be held on February 7th.
Current president Viktor Yushchenko attracted only about 6 per cent of votes, according to the polls, delivering a damning verdict on his five years in power.
Mr Yushchenko and Ms Tymoshenko led the Orange Revolution of winter 2004 to 2005, coming to power as president and prime minister on the back of street protests against Mr Yanukovich’s flagrant use of fraud in a presidential election.
The pair have been locked in a power struggle ever since, however, paralysing vital reforms and allowing Mr Yanukovich to stage a powerful comeback.
Bickering between the former allies has prompted the International Monetary Fund to suspend payment of an emergency €11 billion loan to Ukraine, as it struggles to emerge from a deep recession and massive slump in industrial production.
“I voted for change, for a better life in our country,” Mr Yanukovich said after casting his ballot.
“I feel that the Ukrainian nation also wants change and very soon we will have a new phase in the life of our country.”
Ms Tymoshenko has called Mr Yanukovich a pawn of the tycoons who dominate his industrial stronghold of eastern Ukraine and has accused him of planning electoral fraud to seize power.
While Mr Yushchenko has held to a fiercely anti-Kremlin line, Ms Tymoshenko has softened her previous antipathy towards Russia’s leaders and Mr Yanukovich has sought to attract pro-western Ukrainians by pledging to pursue membership of the EU.
