Yushchenko heading for victory

Liberal challenger Viktor Yushchenko won a re-run of Ukraine's rigged presidential election by a wide margin, according to exit polls and partial offical results published after voting closed yesterday.

A Yushchenko victory is likely to push the ex-Soviet state, poorly managed for years but with huge economic potential, closer to Europe and, Moscow fears, further away from its traditional influence.

By 12.15 a.m., official results compiled from information provided by Ukraine's Central Election Commission showed that when 34.48 per cent votes had been counted, 57.15 per cent voted in favour of Mr Yushchenko against 39.12 per cent for Mr Yanukovich.

Mr Yushchenko scored 56.5 per cent in an exit poll to 41.3 per cent for outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, whose victory last month was overturned by the Supreme Court after mass opposition protests.

A second exit poll gave him a lead just shy of 20 percentage points, cheering supporters in central Kiev, many dressed in their trademark orange.

Mr Yushchenko had claimed the November 21 election was rigged against him and was backed by hundreds of thousands of protesters who brought central Kiev to a halt for two weeks.

The Supreme Court agreed there had been fraud and annulled the result.

The exit polls appeared to hand Mr Yushchenko a large enough victory margin to rule out legal challenges from Mr Yanukovich.

Mr Yushchenko's campaign manager, Oleksander Zinchenko, claimed victory.

"We're entering a new era," he said. "We've just been through the most divisive and dramatic elections of Ukraine's recent history and the Ukrainian people have shown that they themselves are capable of choosing who their president is."

The prime minister, openly backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin before the protests, told reporters he believed he had won but would lead a "tough opposition" if victory was handed to Mr Yushchenko.

The United States, which alongside the European Union has pressed for a fair vote, urged authorities to count accurately.

The first exit poll represented the 80 per cent counted so far of a sample of 30,000 voters conducted by the Kiev International Institute for Sociology and the Razumkov Centre.

Mr Yanukovich accuses his pro-Western rival of trying to stage an "orange coup" on behalf of foreign powers.

Turnout, at an estimated 75 per cent, was little changed from the now discredited first run-off. About 12,000 foreign observers monitored the vote in a country of 47 million people.

A former prime minister and central bank governor, Mr Yushchenko has promised to build a modern economy free of the corruption which marked the ten-year mandate of President Leonid Kuchma, who is stepping down.

He will have fewer powers than his predecessor under a deal in which pro-Kuchma supporters in the split parliament backed last-minute legal changes aimed at eliminating electoral fraud.

As president Mr Yushchenko would have two crucial tasks - in trying to reunite a country split on political and also largely geographical lines and in mending fences with Moscow.

His face disfigured by the mass of bumps and spots from dioxin poisoning which he blames on the authorities, he has been careful to describe neighbouring Russia - on which Ukraine depends for energy supplies - as a strategic partner.

He has appealed also to Russian-speaking voters in the east of the country which backs Yanukovich.

Mr Kuchma backed Mr Yanukovich in the earlier vote but the prime minister now attacks him bitterly. Mr Kuchma told reporters he hoped this vote would at last determine his successor.