Yushchenko calls for blockade of government

Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, winner of Ukraine's re-run of a rigged presidential election, yesterday called on his supporters to block a cabinet meeting today to be led by the man he defeated.

Mr Yushchenko was addressing a crowd of tens of thousands in Kiev's Independence Square after election officials released preliminary results showing he had won the bitterly fought election.

His opponent, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, has refused to concede defeat and remained in office despite being dismissed by parliament. A top European human rights watchdog urged him to accept the verdict of Sunday's poll.

"On behalf of this meeting, let me officially declare there will be no meeting of the government, this illegal government," Mr Yushchenko told the chanting crowd.

"There should not be any meeting tomorrow in the building. An honest government should take over there... Dear friends, I ask you to strengthen a blockade of the government building tomorrow from early in the morning."

Although official confirmation could take several days, the results, with all the votes counted, gave Mr Yushchenko 51.99 percent of the vote to the prime minister's 44.19 per cent.

Before the results were announced, Mr Yushchenko had proclaimed Ukraine finally free 14 years after independence from Soviet rule and pledged to align the country with the West following a decade of scandal and corruption.

On the square, he praised demonstrators for staging weeks of protests denouncing fraud in the November 21 run-off, won by the prime minister but annulled by the Supreme Court.

"In 30 days, we have managed to achieve the notion that we live in a different country," he said.

And he called his supporters to mass in the square for a mass celebration on New Year's Eve.

The Council of Europe, one of the few pan-European organisations of which Ukraine is a member, made no specific mention of Yanukovich in a statement, but 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," said Terry Davis, secretary general of the human rights watchdog.

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, Mr Yanukovich's stronghold.

Mr Yanukovich has vowed to petition the Supreme Court over what he says were numerous election irregularities.

He returned to work in a sign he hoped to exploit his sole remaining power base after outgoing President Leonid Kuchma had all but abandoned him.

His press secretary, Oleskander Tarnavsky, said Yanukovich had ended the "holiday" he had taken after last month's run-off.

After the Supreme Court ordered a new ballot, parliament sacked Mr Yanukovich, but Mr Kuchma refused to sign an enabling decree. That left him in office until the results are finalised.

Mr Yushchenko's aide Petro Poroshenko, one of several leading candidates to be his prime minister, said a government would be put together soon after the inauguration, expected by mid-January.

Western observers praised the poll. US Secretary of State Colin Powell called it a historic moment for democracy.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told Mr Yushchenko the result was a "victory of the courageous citizens of your country who committed themselves firmly to free and fair elections".

But Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said observers from ex-Soviet states were more "honest" than those from elsewhere. "Violations characteristic of the first and second round of voting repeated themselves," he said.