Reformer Viktor Yushchenko, whose victory in Ukraine’s presidential election was all but assured Monday despite his opponent’s threat to appeal the outcome, is expected to move quickly to bolster ties with the West while trying to ease tensions with Russia.
Six months of electoral wrangling have left the country bitterly divided between Ukraine’s west and a Russian-speaking east, a region that backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych in Sunday’s vote and remains angry that his victory in a Nov. 21 ballot was overturned. Yushchenko also heads a political coalition whose factions are not united in their goals.
With nearly all ballots counted from an election that saw a 77 percent turnout, Yushchenko had just more than 52 percent of the votes and Yanukovych 44.2 percent.
Speaking at Kiev’s Independence Square, where mammoth crowds gathered for weeks to protest fraud in last month’s election, a jubilant Yushchenko told supporters, “Thousands of people that were and are at the square were not only waiting for this victory, but they were creating it.”
Yanukovych refused to concede defeat, telling reporters he would go to the Supreme Court to challenge the results once the election commission released its final tally.
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Compiled from news services and edited by Patrick Olsen (polsen@tribune.com) and Michael Morgan (mnmorgan@tribune.com)
