Opposition’s Yanukovich claims win in Ukraine poll

Opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich claimed victory in Ukraine’s presidential elections and told his bitter rival Yulia Tymoshenko to resign as prime minister, but she refused to concede and declared she was ahead.

Yanukovich, 59, a beefy ex-mechanic who wants better ties with Moscow, promised quick reforms to overcome Ukraine’s deep economic crisis after exit polls and initial results gave him a lead of several points over Tymoshenko.

”I think that Yulia Tymoshenko should prepare to resign. She understands that well,” Yanukovich said on Sunday.

Preliminary official results, with just over 16 percent counted, gave Yanukovich 51.86 percent against 42.80 percent for longtime rival Tymoshenko.

Exit polls but him 3-4 points ahead.

But presaging a possible messy legal challenge, Tymoshenko’s campaign chief said her camp was conducting a ”parallel count” that gave Tymoshenko the lead with 46.8 percent to 46.0 for Yanukovich with 85 percent of votes counted.

In yet another count, Yanukovich’s camp said he was ahead by 4.5 percent.

Tymoshenko was the co-architect of Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, when mass street protests overturned an initial Yanukovich election victory tainted by fraud.

Former gas tycoon Tymoshenko, 49, was in no mood to give up this time either.

Looking stern before reporters, she urged her team to ”fight for every result, every document, every vote”.

Regardless of the outcome of Sunday’s election, squabbling was set to continue, reflecting the country’s broader divisions.

Ukraine is divided almost equally between a Russian-leaning east

and south and a Western-friendly centre and west.

Assuming Yanukovich’s victory is confirmed, Tymoshenko can expect in any case to be ousted as prime minister by a vote of no confidence in parliament.

Yanukovich will then try to form a new coalition to get his own ally into the role, or call a snap parliamentary election.

Before polls closed, Tymoshenko’s camp complained of multiple voting and bribery in the eastern Donetsk region, the industrial power base of Yanukovich, and said it would contest

results in around 1,000 polling stations.