Yushchenko confirmed as Ukraine's president

KIEV - Ukraine's Central Election Commission formally declared today that liberal Viktor Yushchenko won last month's presidential election with 51.99 per cent of the vote, paving the way for him to take power.

"The Central Election Commission declares Viktor Yushchenko elected president of Ukraine," Commission chief Yaroslav Davydovych said.

Yushchenko's Moscow-backed opponent, former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich won 44.2 per cent.

He has contested the poll, which was held after hundreds of thousands of Yushchenko supporters protested against an earlier November vote, saying it had been rigged in Yanukovich's favour.

The Supreme Court declared the election rigged and ordered a re-run.

Yanukovich's repeated challenges of the December 26 election led to two weeks of political limbo, and Yushchenko said the delay was "torturing the nation".

Today's meeting was briefly halted after Yushchenko's opponent, former prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, brought yet another challenge before the Supreme Court.

But by evening local time the court closed without ordering election workers to stop, and they resumed counting.

Yanukovich had vowed to fight the election result despite saying he has no hope of success. Yushchenko has said the appeals "torture the nation", and his supporters say Yanukovich is buying time for allies to cover the tracks of shady deals.

"The Central Election Commission is rushing with its declaration of the results, because the process of examining complaints has not yet been finished," Yanukovich's representative on the election commission Nestor Shufrin said.

Yushchenko's campaign chief Oleksander Zinchenko said plans were being drawn up for an inauguration, and invitations would be extended to leaders of the G8 group of industrial countries.

The Supreme Court threw out Yanukovich's main appeal last week and rejected challenges to results from individual precincts on Monday morning. The head of Yanukovich's campaign staff said he was working on still more appeals.

The transition has not been pretty after an election seen as an historic battle between east and west.

In the two weeks since the election, one member of the outgoing cabinet was found dead in his sauna with a gunshot wound to the head. Kuchma sacked other officials and some are rumoured to have left the country.

Before November's rigged election, Yushchenko was poisoned in what he says was a murder attempt by the authorities.

Yushchenko's supporters have spent the two weeks -- which included back-to-back three-day holiday weekends -- celebrating his victory in the centre of the capital Kiev.

But the euphoria hides serious challenges for Yushchenko's early days in office. Large parts of the mainly Russian-speaking east and south supported Yanukovich. They have backed away from threats to pursue autonomy, but remain hostile to Yushchenko.

Yushchenko's party controls just 100 of the 450 seats in parliament and allied parties perhaps 100 more. He will have to form a coalition to confirm his choice of prime minister, and under new rules the prime minister, cabinet and parliament will take many powers his predecessor had as president.

He must also patch up relations with Moscow, where President Vladimir Putin openly campaigned for Yanukovich.

Yushchenko has promised to turn Ukraine towards the West, but its Soviet-era industry depends on imports of gas and oil from other parts of the ex-Soviet Union over Russian territory, giving Moscow enormous leverage over Ukraine's economy.

Outgoing President Leonid Kuchma did spare his successor one difficult task on Monday: he ordered Ukraine's 1600 troops home from Iraq in the first half of 2005, following a blast on Sunday which killed eight Ukrainian soldiers and a Kazakh.

Both Yushchenko and Yanukovich had campaigned on pledges to bring the troops home. Yushchenko said this will be a priority as soon as he takes power.

- REUTERS