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10 Feb, 2010 18:14

Tensions high in Ukraine after runoff

Despite the fact that preliminary results of the runoff presidential elections in Ukraine have shown victory to Victor Yanukovich, tensions are far from decreasing in Ukraine.

The head of the Yulia Timoshenko’s election campaign office, Aleksandr Turchinov, announced on Wednesday that the second round of the elections has seen “falsifications that substantially affected results of the voting.”

Turchinov added that the office is ready to provide concrete evidence of falsifications to international observers, journalists and court. He said that the office has sent documents demanding recounting of votes at over 900 polling stations to the Central Election Committee of the country.

Meanwhile, Yulia Timoshenko herself has remained silent.

Political analyst Aleksey Garan told RT that, although it is Timoshenko’s right to challenge the results of the voting, she should not expect it to be an easy task.

“There were certainly some irregularities in the east of the country and in Crimea,” he said. “Mostly they were at a very, very local level, which is really difficult to see for international observers.”

”It is the right of Timoshenko to go and contest the results to the court and there is understanding she will do this. The question is, what information she and her lawyers have on file and whether it would be able to prove that there were falsifications which finally lead to distortion in the results,” he added.

Meanwhile, Victor Yanukovich has called on Yulia Timoshenko to accept the “people’s will” and to the leave her post as prime minister.

"I am addressing the prime minister with a formal call to resign and to go into opposition,” he said in a statement to his fellow citizens, placed on the Party of Regions website.

“My call to the members of the parliamentary coalition is to suspend their activity in order to let me enter into negotiations with different factions over forming a new Cabinet," he added.

“The country does not need another political crisis,” Yanukovich persisted. “People have distinctly spoken for a change of power.”

He also said when he takes office his priorities will include drastic economic reforms and improvement of relations with Russia.

Political analyst Sergey Utkin said he does not foresee another revolution in Ukraine.

“What we see is a stabilization of the Ukrainian political system,” he said. “We had a lot of turmoil in recent years and this time we have a rather normal election process which ended up with the opposition leader as the winner.”

“When a country establishes a system that brings the opposition to power, that just means it is normal, it is a normal country. It works as a parliamentary democracy,” Utkin added.



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