Ukraine's Tymoshenko: Vote fraud in presidential election, will sue

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Saturday ended nearly a week of public silence on her defeat in a presidential election, claiming her loss was caused by vote rigging, dpa reported.

The populist politician in a 10-minute statement on major Ukrainian television stations said her opponent in the Sunday election, former prime minister Viktor Yanukovych, won because of more than one million fraudulent ballots cast in his favour.

Tymoshenko cited as an example Ukraine's southern Crimea province, where according to her, vote fraud in favour of Yanukovych added between 3 and 8 per cent to her opponent's vote tally.

"I can say confidently that Ukraine's election results were falsified," she said. "This is not a political declaration, but a clear political evaluation."

Lawyers hired by her political party BYuT would file suits to prove the fraud, she said.

Tymoshenko's declaration was in line with expectations of most political observers, who since Monday had been predicting a Tymoshenko legal challenge to the Yanukovych win.

Yanukovych had called on Tymoshenko to concede defeat. She had not, until her Saturday evening pre-recorded television statement, responded publicly.

Yanukovych received 48.95 per cent voter support in the the February 7 election, according to official Central Election Committee counts. Tymoshenko obtained 45.47 per cent.

The numbers were almost identical to vote results predicted by a half dozen exit polls.

More than 3,3000 international observers monitored the vote. Officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) called the presidential election free, fair, and well within European standards.