Ukrainian PM urged to accept defeat

KIEV - A leading European human rights watchdog has urged Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich to accept defeat after official preliminary results showed his West-leaning rival Viktor Yushchenko winning the presidency.

Although official confirmation could take several days, the results on Tuesday, with 100 per cent of the vote counted, gave Yushchenko 51.99 per cent of the vote to the premier's 44.19 per cent.

Yushchenko earlier had proclaimed Ukraine finally free 14 years after independence from Soviet rule and pledged to align the country, buffeted by scandal and corruption for a decade, with the West.

Russia, fearing losing influence over a region where it held sway for 300 years, has yet to comment on the result.

In a statement the Council of Europe, one of the few pan-European organisations of which Ukraine is a member, made no specific mention of Yanukovich. But it urged all sides to accept the will of the people.

"I call on all parties to accept the verdict of the ballot box and to refrain from rhetoric which may fuel division in Ukraine," Terry Davis, secretary general of the Council of Europe, said in the statement.

The election, the third in two months, highlighted a centuries-old divide between the country's pro-Yushchenko Ukrainian-speaking west and Russian-speaking industrialised east, Yanukovich's stronghold.

Yanukovich has vowed to challenge Yushchenko's victory and returned to work in a sign he hoped to exploit the sole power base left to him after outgoing President Leonid Kuchma all but abandoned him.

The prime minister's press secretary, Oleskander Tarnavsky, said Yanukovich had ended the "holiday" he had taken after last month's run-off -- won by Yanukovich but later struck down by the Supreme Court for having been rigged.

After the court ruling, parliament dismissed the prime minister, but Kuchma refused to sign an enabling decree, leaving Yanukovich in office until Ukraine's Central Election Commission finalises the results.

Yanukovich, backed by Kuchma and by big neighbour Russia in the earlier poll, has said he will submit large numbers of irregularities to the Supreme Court, saying only a blind man could have failed to note them.

Western observers praised the poll. US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday called the election a historic moment for democracy and added the election appeared to have been "full and free."

Casting a shadow over the government was the death of Transport Minister Heorhiy Kyrpa, a Yanukovich ally found on Monday with a gunshot wound to the head. Ukrainian investigators were trying to determine whether he committed suicide.

The opposition had accused Kyrpa of arranging free transport for miners from the eastern town of Donetsk to Kiev to counter protests backing Yushchenko's allegations of electoral fraud. The government denied the allegation.

His death followed the suspected suicide of the CEO of a leading Ukrainian bank which had strong ties with one of the country's prominent business groups or "clans". Yuri Lyakh of Ukrainian Credit Bank was found dead in his office.

Yushchenko, in an article published in the Financial Times, vowed to reach all sections of Ukraine's society and build a Western-style democracy.

Among early projects he said would be "plans for ramping up Ukraine's relations with the European Union", which Yushchenko says Ukraine should aim to join one day.

But mindful of the importance of relations with Moscow, Yushchenko also told the daily Izvestia there was no crisis in relations despite Kremlin support for his rival in the poll.

- REUTERS