Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych = Pro-Moscow
Former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko = Pro-West
Ukraine’s election commission declared Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych the winner of a hotly contested presidential runoff.
Pro-Moscow Yanukovych had 49.46 percent of the vote while opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko was named on 46.61 of the ballots, the commission said Wednesday.
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Yushchenko warned Tuesday that Ukraine could descend into civil war if the election results he called “a sham” are not annulled and he is not named president.
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Yushchenko — and U.S. and European election observers — said the vote was fraudulent. Kiev, Lviv and several other cities announced they would not accept the results of the vote and would recognize only Yushchenko as the winner.
On Tuesday, Yushchenko led up to 200,000 protesters in a march on Ukraine’s parliament demanding authorities admit they cheated in the election.
Parliamentary deputies held an emergency session to debate opposition calls to annul the vote and pass a no-confidence vote against the election commission. But the chamber lacked enough members for a quorum.
The politicians spoke anyway, as demonstrators watched on a large television screen set up outside.When Yushchenko stepped before the cameras, the crowd outside parliament roared its approval.
After the session ended, Yushchenko symbolically swore the oath of office on a Bible. The country’s constitution, however, stipulates that the president swears allegiance on a copy of the constitution.
Russia Threatens to Cease Investments in Ukraine Due to Political Crisis
This is going to be interesting, to say the least.
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