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Yushchenko concedes defeat

Posted on: Wed January 20, 2010

KIEV: President Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday said he accepted defeat in Ukraine s presidential elections but defiantly vowed to remain in politics as the next stage of the campaign heated up. Yushchenko, the figurehead of the 2004 Orange Revolution, won just 5.45 per cent of the vote in the first round elections on Sunday amid widespread disappointment with his presidency. But in a characteristically defiant statement, Yushchenko said that the holding of free elections, warmly praised by international observers, was in itself proof of the victory of the Orange Revolution. As head of state, I accept the will of the people in the January 17 elections. The main thing is the elections were free, democratic and legal, he told reporters in his first public comment after the vote. But national and state circumstances do not give me the moral right to leave political life, he added. Yushchenko had vowed to turn Ukraine into a prosperous nation anchored in the European Union and NATO but his ambitions were undermined by political infighting and a dire economic crisis. Analysts also critisised the president a passionate defender of Ukraine s cultural heritage for focusing on grandiose historical projects at the expense of concrete reform. Yushchenko s result left him in a lowly fifth place, behind frontrunners Viktor Yanukovich and Yulia Tymoshenko, who will now contest the run-off vote on February 7. Both are seen as more pro-Moscow than the incumbent president. But after observers led by the OSCE praised the elections as of high quality, Yushchenko said the vote had set an example for the entire former Soviet Union. The apparent success of the elections contrasted with the last polls in 2004 where mass rigging blamed on Yanukovich s supporters prompted the peaceful protests of the Orange Revolution that swept the old order from power. The fact that the elections were free means that the Orange Revolution actually won and did not only win in word but also in deed, Yushchenko said. The pro-Western president however expressed serious doubt about the capabilities of the two remaining candidates, who he said were both far from national, European and democratic values. He declined to support either one of them. Expressing my opinion as a citizen of Ukraine, I do not see fundamental differences between the two candidates, he added. As the next stage of the campaign gained momentum, Tymoshenko revealed she had offered the third-place candidate Sergiy Tigipko the post of prime minister in a clear encouragement for his electorate to back her in round two. But Tigipko has so far made clear he has no intention of backing either candidate. Yanukovich led Tymoshenko by 10 percentage points in the first round and most analysts are forecasting a tight and bitterly-contested run-off election that is still wide open. In a sign of the bitter sniping to come, Yanukovich at a rally in the city of Kharkiv took aim at Tymoshenko for her personal attacks she has made against him over the last days. I think that as prime minister she must carry responsibility for her every word. And if she s simply a woman, then she must go to the kitchen and show off her caprices there, he said, according to the website of his party. The dour Yanukovich, not known for his rhetorical skills, has repeatedly refused the more glamorous and articulate Tymoshenko s demands to take part in a televised debate. She sees that she has already lost the election and proposes that I compete with her in lies and muck, he added.

Courtesy : The News