Ukraine Premier Won’t Accept Defeat

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich remained defiant in the face of apparent defeat Wednesday, pressing a legal effort to overturn results showing he lost Ukraine’s recent presidential election and rejecting opposition demands that he leave office in line with an early-December parliamentary vote of no confidence.

Yanukovich yielded some ground, however, by saying that he would remain on vacation as a candidate rather than attempt to resume his prime ministerial duties.

Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, the unofficial winner of Sunday’s balloting by 52% to 44%, had called on his supporters to blockade the main government building to bar Yanukovich after the prime minister said he would lead a Cabinet meeting there Wednesday.

Members of Yushchenko’s camp have said they expect him to be inaugurated in mid-January. Yushchenko has sought to have an interim government run the country until then.

Thousands of Yushchenko backers encircled the Cabinet building Wednesday morning, allowing employees to pass but declaring their intent to keep Yanukovich out.

“If a person doesn’t understand he has to leave, someone has to show him,” said Onysya Dubchak, 45.

“I’m here because I don’t want my country to be on sale during these final days,” said student Dima Borshchuk, 18, expressing the fear of many Yushchenko supporters that the government may attempt to transfer state assets to cronies before Yushchenko takes power.

It was unclear whether Cabinet ministers would have been allowed into the building. They met elsewhere, but Yanukovich did not join them.

Speaking Wednesday evening at a news conference, Yanukovich said he was challenging the vote results before the Central Election Commission and the Supreme Court. The high court, citing fraud, invalidated a Nov. 21 presidential runoff that Yanukovich had narrowly won by official count. Yanukovich has called that ruling illegal.

“I want to prove that law, justice and conscience are on our side,” Yanukovich said. “The truth of history is with us. The main thing for us today is to protect our choice, Ukraine’s choice, in the Central Election Commission and the Supreme Court using all legal means.”

The Central Election Commission, however, already has turned down some of Yanukovich’s appeals. Its head, Yaroslav Davydovych, indicated that the panel was unlikely to rule in favor of Yanukovich in the others.

“These legal challenges are an attempt to draw the commission out of its impartial stand and into politics. And that is impossible,” Davydovych said.

Yanukovich also repeated his belief that parliament’s decision in early December to remove him from his post had failed to meet legal requirements.

“I disagreed with the parliament’s decision because procedure was violated and the law of Ukraine was violated,” he said. “Now when they say that I have to resign, I say, ‘Continue your illegal actions.’ I will not resign, on principle. I know why they insist on me leaving now: because they are afraid, back then and now.”

Yanukovich declined to say why he had not attended the Cabinet meeting. “It’s up to you to draw the conclusions,” he told reporters. “I’m not obliged to report to you about where I was or was not at any given moment.”

Instead of stepping down from the prime minister’s post after the parliamentary vote, Yanukovich took vacation time for his campaign. At the news conference, he backed away from his assertion Tuesday that he would resume work.

“I’m now a candidate,” he said. “I took a vacation according to this status in the law. I’ll be in this status until the procedure is over.”

Yushchenko, meanwhile, told reporters Wednesday that his bloc in parliament had agreed before the election campaign to back Yulia Tymoshenko, the firebrand leader of an allied bloc, for prime minister.

Tymoshenko played a key role in the demonstrations against the Nov. 21 vote results. She also is an economist and former deputy prime minister.

The prime minister, however, has to be approved by a parliamentary majority. Tymoshenko’s bloc holds 20 seats, Yushchenko’s about 100. Whoever is to become prime minister will need additional support in the 450-seat legislature.

Yushchenko mentioned alternative candidates, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported.