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KIEV: Ukraine on Wednesday stood on the brink of fresh political turmoil as Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko refused to acknowledge defeat in presidential elections and her rival called on her to resign.
The election winner, the pro-Russia Viktor Yanukovych, demanded Tymoshenko stand down as prime minister, warning that Ukraine did not need a new crisis after being plagued by instability in recent years.
Three days after Yanukovych beat Tymoshenko by a margin of some 3.5 per cent in bitterly-fought elections, she has yet to concede defeat and her party has called for a partial recount of the votes.
With political tensions riding high, thousands of Yanukovych supporters Wednesday rallied for the third day in a row outside the headquarters of the election commission with the aim of ensuring the results stand.
"I call on the prime minister to resign and go into opposition," Yanukovych said in an statement posted on the website of his Regions Party.
"I want to remind Mrs Tymoshenko that the basis of democracy is the will of the people. Democratic leaders always accept the results of the elections.
"The country does not need a new crisis," he added.
Tymoshenko has disappeared from public view since making a short comment on Sunday after the release of exit polls and it was unclear when the usually talkative prime minister, famed for her golden hair braid, would reappear.
Adding to the confusion, Sviatoslav Olyinyk, a deputy from her Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko party (BYuT) said Tymoshenko could make a statement Wednesday or Thursday recognising the election results.
However Tymoshenko aides told AFP there was no news on when she would break her silence. The BYuT is reported to be split on the issue, with one faction seeking to persuade her to concede.
Another BYuT deputy, Sergiy Vlasenko, said the party would ask for a recount in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk and in the Crimea peninsula, all Yanukovych strongholds where he polled extremely well.
The conduct of Sunday's vote received ringing endorsements from Western observers and governments who characterised it as free and democratic.
With votes from all polling stations now counted, Yanukovych won 48.95 per cent of the vote, compared to Tymoshenko's 45.47 per cent, the central election commission said.
Though official, these results are still preliminary and must be formally certified by the election commission, a process which may take some weeks.
Tymoshenko was one of the leaders of the 2004 Orange Revolution that sparked hopes of a new start in the ex-Soviet country bordering the EU and Russia but whose ambitions crumbled amid political infighting and economic crisis.
Yanukovych has long been seen as a pro-Kremlin figure and was accused of staging the vote-rigging in the 2004 presidential elections that sparked the Orange uprising.
In his first major foreign policy statement since the election, Yanukovych issued a clear signal by saying that relations with Russia would be a priority of his presidency.
"A priority for us will be relations with Russia and the CIS," he said, referring to the Commonwealth of Independent States grouping of post-Soviet states.
"Our countries are closely linked by economics, culture and history."
Ukraine's relations with Russia deteriorated badly under its current President, the vehemently pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko, who rose to power in the Orange Revolution.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has already congratulated Yanukovych on his election.
But comment from the United States has been restricted to a brief statement from the US embassy in Kiev, which praised the elections as a consolidation of democracy in Ukraine but made no mention of Yanukovych.
- AFP/yb
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