Prime minister takes lead in Ukrainian election

By ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC
The Associated Press

IVAN SEKRETAREV / AP Election-commission officials empty a ballot box at a polling station in Kiev yesterday. Ukrainians voted in a presidential election, and the vote was seen as a key test of democracy in this nation of 48 million people.

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

With almost 50 percent of the precincts counted from yesterday's vote, Yanukovych had 46 percent, while the main challenger, opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, had nearly 34 percent, the Central Elections Commission said.

An array of exit polls put the two top candidates within a few percentage points of each other, with both of them below the 50 percent needed to avoid a Nov. 21 runoff.

Yushchenko, in a live television broadcast, said early today that a count by his campaign observers showed him with just over than 50 percent of the vote.

Official results that differed sharply from the exit polls could inflame tensions, which were already high in the former Soviet republic after weeks of opposition claims that officials planned wide-scale vote fraud.

During the balloting, the elections-commission building was cordoned off with waist-high metal partitions. Several water-cannon and military-type attack vehicles were under camouflage webbing, apparently anticipating unruly demonstrations, though only a few dozen people gathered outside.

More than 20 buses with security forces and at least five police armored jeeps were parked in downtown Kiev, about one mile from the commission building. About 147,000 police were on duty and thousands of additional security forces were assigned to the capital.

The vote was seen as a key test of democracy in this nation of 48 million people a little smaller in size than Texas and as an indicator of what direction Ukrainians will choose for their nation, which has cultivated ties with the West and neighboring Russia. Yushchenko is considered the more pro-Western of the two.

In other elections:

Exit polls in Uruguay showed that Tabaré Vázquez, a 64-year-old doctor, would become the country's first leftist president. He campaigned on a platform of greater social justice after a crippling economic crisis.

The governing Botswana Democratic Party of President Festus Mogaewon the southern African country's election, taking at least 29 seats in the 57-seat parliament.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

E-mail this article

Print this article

Search archive

More nation & world headlines...