Ukrainian results stalled as court deliberates fraud claim

A COURT in Ukraine has suspended the results of the country’s presidential election until it rules on Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s claim that opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich rigged the vote.

The move came as Ukraine’s speaker of parliament pressed Ms Tymoshenko to prove that she could still command a majority of MPs in the chamber or allow talks to begin on forming a new ruling coalition, one that would be built around Mr Yanukovich’s pro-Russian Regions Party.

Ms Tymoshenko accuses her rival of using “systemic, fundamental, large-scale fraud” to secure a narrow victory in this month’s election run-off to find a successor to Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko, with whom she led the 2004 Orange Revolution before becoming bitter enemies.

Mr Yanukovich, whose use of fraud in a 2004 vote triggered the street protests of the Orange Revolution, rejects the accusations and insists he will be sworn in as president as planned on February 25th.

Ms Tymoshenko’s party said they would ask parliament to block the inauguration until their legal challenge had been completed, something that could take months if it involves appeals in several courts.

The supreme administrative court in Kiev said hearings on the electoral fraud claims would start tomorrow.

Anna Herman, a senior member of the Regions Party, dismissed the court case as a “mere formality”. “These proceedings can’t overturn the obvious: the majority of Ukrainians have voted for Yanukovich,” she said. “The entire world has recognised Yanukovich’s victory.”

Unlike in 2004, international monitors said this year’s ballot was fair and western leaders have joined Russia in congratulating Mr Yanukovich.

He refuses to work with Ms Tymoshenko and hopes to install a different government and premier without having to call a snap general election, which could weaken his party’s standing in parliament and further hamper efforts to tackle Ukraine’s deep economic crisis.

Parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn asked Ms Tymoshenko to gather signatures of MPs to show that at least 226 of the 450 politicians in the assembly support her. “If there are no documents . . . then we will have to form a new coalition,” Mr Lytvyn said.