UKRAINE: The centre of the Ukrainian capital Kiev turned bright orange last night as tens of thousands of opposition protesters flooded on to the streets to accuse the government of electoral fraud. Chris Stephen in Kiev reports
Clad in orange armbands, orange scarves and orange hats, they converged on the central Independence Square, singing and chanting and waving square orange flags with the word Tak - Ukrainian for Yes - stamped in big red letters.
Cars raced by with flags fluttering from windows, orange flashers on and horns honking. By late afternoon more than 100,000 had crammed into the square, chanting "Yush-chen-ko", the name of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko, whom they believe is the rightful winner of Sunday's poll.
They were buoyed by announcements from a giant screen, erected by opposition supporters, that flashed news that international monitors had condemned the elections as fraudulent.
Standing on the edge of the tree-lined Khreshchatik Boulevard, Kiev's main street, mother and daughter Svetlana and Valery Simonova said they would stay here as long as it takes.
"All our friends are here, our family is on the way here, we won't leave this square until the results are honest," said Svetlana, (50), a psychologist, dressed in a purple coat and black hat against the sub-zero temperature. "I do not want to be governed by criminals . . . We want to be part of you in Europe, everybody who is here is here for that reason."
Her words were drowned as a yellow car festooned in orange ribbons boomed past, horn honking, passengers exchanging cheers with the line of protesters who had strung an orange ribbon across the road.
Valery (26), an English-language student dressed with an orange plastic sheet wrapped about a thick green parka, nodded vigorously. "We will stay here one day, one week, one month, as long as it takes," she said. "Most of my friends are leaving the faculty to be here. Students want change. Under this government you get a salary of $100, that is only enough to pay the rent."
Midway through the afternoon, Yushchenko arrived in the square, addressing the crowd from a sound stage built by his supporters. "Remain where you are!" he told them, his amplified voice booming around the square. "From all parts of Ukraine, on carts, cars, planes and train,s tens of thousands of people are on their way here. Our action is only beginning."
By evening the protest had spread half a mile down the boulevard, which was bordered by orange tape and guarded by opposition marshals in black leather jackets and black berets with orange armbands. The road was blocked off by orange wooden imitation tank traps.
"The government has police and tanks, but our protest is aimed at the families of the men who drive those tanks," said Svetlana, her nose now red from the cold.
This is a well organised protest, with demonstrators saying there had been fraud in the first round of voting, three weeks ago, so they expected the same thing from the government this time.
"We knew this would happen, of course we did," said Svetlana. "Last night when the exit polls showed Yushchenko had won, we knew to expect the election would be stolen."
Lines of tents have been built on both sides of the boulevard by opposition supporters, each tent perched on a block of polystyrene to insulate it from the cold tarmac.
Meanwhile on the square itself, the business of assembling evidence of election fraud has begun, with sympathetic members of polling stations arriving with photocopies of their official tallies. The collection is likely to be incomplete; stations in the west of the country and in the overwhelmingly pro-opposition capital, flocked to the square, but few came from the pro-Yanukovich east where monitors say fraud was heaviest.
Around the corner, a few dozen police stood silently by the entrance to Yanukovich's election headquarters, on a street blocked by three dump trucks filled with sand and parked to form a solid barrier.
A mile away across town, a much larger police contingent, bolstered by two armoured cars and four mobile water cannons, surrounded the headquarters of the Central Election Commission, as it finished tallying the results.
Down the hill on the banks of the wide Dnipr River, the orange balloons at opposition headquarters were looking limp and the building was a mass of rumour. Officials in their ubiquitous orange plastic armbands spoke of a million opposition supporters heading to Kiev in time for weekend rallies; others said pro-government thugs from the east were being bused into the capital to fight them.
Election observers meanwhile gave a press conference in the city's teaching academy, with representatives from the European Union, the Council of Europe and other organisations with long and important-sounding names queuing up to condemn the government for producing a fraudulent election. Opposition journalists clapped many of the statements, saying they feared a return to state censorship which saw them stage walkouts last month.
What happens next is anyone's guess: the opposition are barricaded into their square, the government into their official buildings.
Neither side is strong enough to dislodge the other and both are drawing support from expected quarters, with Russia warmly welcoming news of the government's success and western government lining up to tut-tut reports of fraud.
Troops and police are on the move in the city, but seem to have been deployed to guard buildings deemed essential to the state rather than to attack the protesters.
The protesters for their part are content to occupy the square, with little talk of storming government buildings and an insistence on non-violence.
With Yanukovich likely to accept the presidency in the coming days, much will depend on Yushchenko and whether he is prepared for the risk of serious violence that may come with an extended protest.