Ukraine exit polls report Yanukovych election victory

 

Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovich waves to the media after voting during the presidential election at a polling station in Kiev February 7, 2010 

 Exit polls from Ukraine indicate that the pro-Moscow opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych has narrowly won the country's presidential election.

They say Mr Yanukovych has a lead of several percentage points over opponent Yulia Tymoshenko, the Prime Minister.

He challenged Mrs Tymoshenko to quit, but she refused to concede.

If confirmed, it would be a remarkable comeback for Mr Yanukovych, who was swept aside five years ago by the peaceful "Orange Revolution".

Under the 59-year-old former mechanic, Ukraine's foreign policy is expected to become more pro-Russian.

'Full circle'

The BBC's Richard Galpin in Kiev says a Yanukovych win would be an extraordinary indictment of the pro-Western Orange Revolution leaders' failure to deliver on their promises, which has left people deeply disillusioned.

Politics in Ukraine has now gone full circle, our correspondent adds.

Mr Yanukovych was a presidential candidate in the last election in 2004, which was found to have been rigged in his favour.

Mrs Tymoshenko's impassioned leadership of the subsequent street protests that swept him from power - and thrust her to office, along with Viktor Yushchenko - made her an international celebrity.

Incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko lost in the first round of the election last month.

Mr Yanukovych has secured 48.7% of the vote against Mrs Tymoshenko's 45.5%, according to the National Exit Poll.

Another exit poll, by ICTV, said he took 49.8%, against 45.2% for his rival.

It would be a narrower margin of victory than his campaign had been hoping for.

Mr Yanukovych reportedly said it was time for his rival to quit.

"I think that Yulia Tymoshenko should prepare to resign. She understands that well," Interfax-Ukraine quoted him as saying in a television interview.

"In any case, I believe such a suggestion will be put to her."

But Mrs Tymoshenko, 49, showed no sign of standing down.

In a news conference, she said her team was conducting a "parallel count" and urged them to "fight for every result, every document, every vote", reports Reuters news agency.

The election commission is not due to release preliminary results until Monday morning, but our correspondent in Ukraine says exit polls there are generally accurate.

Mud-slinging

Mr Yanukovych won last month's first round of voting, finishing 10 percentage points ahead of Mrs Tymoshenko.

She has threatened to take her supporters to the streets if defeated, saying the protests could be larger than those of the Orange Revolution.

Sunday's vote came after a bitter mud-slinging campaign in which real policy issues and debate appeared to have been forgotten, says our correspondent.

On Saturday, Mrs Tymoshenko's political bloc accused Mr Yanukovych's Party of Regions of blocking her supporters from overseeing the vote in the eastern Donetsk region.

Mr Yanukovych's camp hit back with allegations that some supporters of the prime minister had been tampering with ballots in an attempt to get votes from eastern Ukraine disqualified.

President Yushchenko - who came fifth in last month's first round - led a series of bitter personal attacks on former ally Mrs Tymoshenko during the campaign.

His working relationship with the prime minister over the last five years was poisoned by bickering as Ukraine became engulfed by an economic crisis, with its GDP plummeted 15% last year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8503177.stm

 

 

Viktor Yanukovych

Viktor Yanukovych is hoping for a remarkable turnaround - to recover from humiliation and disgrace in Ukraine's election of 2004, and win the presidency at his next attempt.

In 2004 he was declared the official winner, but following huge protests on the streets of Kiev - the Orange Revolution - his victory was ruled fraudulent and annulled by the Supreme Court.

The re-run was won by Viktor Yushchenko.

But Mr Yanukovych has remained a force to be reckoned with in Ukrainian politics, and draws strong support from Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east of the country.

He argues that the rise of democracy in Ukraine has not been worth the price of order and, if elected, has pledged to promote democracy based on the rule of law.

In 2004 Mr Yanukovych was seen as outgoing President Leonid Kuchma's protege - identified with an unpopular administration accused of corruption and economic mismanagement.

He also had the open support of Vladimir Putin, who was Russia's president at the time.

Grassroots support

Nowadays, Mr Yanukovych is trying hard to shed the image of being "Moscow's man".

He recently told the BBC that much had changed since 2004.

"I remain committed to a balanced policy, which will protect our national interests both on our eastern border - I mean with Russia - and of course with the European Union," he said.

"Ukraine's integration with the EU remains our strategic aim."

His Party of the Regions accuses Mr Yushchenko and the Orange Revolution team of plunging Ukraine into an economic crisis that has forced it to seek billions of dollars of IMF aid.

While his party wants to restore close ties with Russia - ties that were strained by the pro-Western liberal policies pursued by Mr Yushchenko and his team - it also wants more powers devolved to the regions. His strongest support is in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Lugansk and Crimea.

Meteoric rise

Born into the family of a metalworker and a nurse in the eastern town of Yenakiyevo in July 1950, Mr Yanukovych had a troubled childhood.

He was twice jailed for violent crimes in his youth - though his official biography states that his convictions were eventually quashed.

"I came from a very poor family and my main dream in life was to break out of this poverty," he once told journalists.

Beginning his career as a transport executive in the Soviet Union's key coal-mining industry in eastern Ukraine, he became a Doctor of Economics - the equivalent of a PhD - in 2000.

He became governor of the Donetsk region, home to more than three million people and the economic powerhouse of Ukraine, less than a year after entering the local administration.

Some see him as the figurehead of Donetsk's political and business groups and associate him with local oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.

Supporters say Donetsk secured unprecedented levels of investment during his governorship.

Language problem

Former President Leonid Kuchma appointed him prime minister in November 2002.

Although he learned Ukrainian after taking office, Mr Yanukovych often finds it difficult to express himself in literary Ukrainian and switches to Russian when dealing with difficult subjects.

Mr Yanukovych's opponents have often made fun of his appearance - he is almost two metres tall (6ft 6ins) and is reported to weigh at least 110kg (240lb).

He has often played up his stature, and stressed his manly skills as a parachutist and a pilot

Given this, he was widely ridiculed after the 2004 "egg incident" in Ivano-Frankivsk, when an opposition activist threw an egg at him in public.

Mr Yanukovych collapsed to the ground, groaning and clutching his chest.

Initially taken to hospital and put in intensive care, he recovered within hours and went on television to say he felt sorry for the "wayward" youngster who had thrown the egg

 

                                " I came from a very poor family and my main dream in life was to break out of this poverty "