Ukraine faces global backlash over disputed poll

Ukraine faced a global backlash Tuesday over elections won by the ruling party that the West called a step backwards for democracy and saw jailed ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko launch a protest hunger strike. The United States joined Western observers of Sunday's ballot in calling the vote a "step backwards" for the ex-Soviet nation and further isolating the increasingly controversial President Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych's Regions Party was set to win the polls against Tymoshenko's opposition bloc and the UDAR (Punch) group of boxer Vitali Klitschko, with some predicting it would have a thin overall majority in the new parliament. Results based on 87 percent of the precincts reporting showed the Regions Party collecting 31.8 percent of the ballot and Tymoshenko's alliance registering 24.2 percent.The Communist Party and UDAR each had about 14 percent of the vote while the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) group, loosely allied with Tymoshenko, rounded off the five parties set to make it into the chamber with 9.6 percent. But the opposition pointed to an independent exit poll conducted by the country's most experienced and respected survey organisation showing Tymoshenko's bloc only trailing the Regions Party by about four percentage points. "These elections were falsified from start to finish," Tymoshenko said in a statement read by her lawyer Sergiy Vlasenko on Monday.The fiery 2004 Orange Revolution leader and former premier -- sentenced to seven years on abuse of power charges she views as the president's personal vendetta -- said she would go on hunger strike "until the true results are established". The final composition of the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada will be determined half by the proportional vote and half by first-past-the-post results in single mandate constituencies where the Regions Party has polled especially well. "We expect these results to hold," Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told reporters. "This means that the Regions Party has scored a resounding victory." Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) piled pressure on Yanukovych by calling the elections a reversal of Ukraine's democratic progress. "Considering the abuse of power, and the excessive role of money in this election, democratic progress appears to have reversed in Ukraine," said OSCE special coordinator Walburga Habsburg Douglas.Douglas also pointed out that Western officials had to go to various jails to hear leading opposition voices because both Tymoshenko and allies such as ex-interior minister Yuriy Lutsenko had all been convicted of abuse of power. Yanukovych rejects the charges and claims to be only fighting corruption in the upper echelons of the elite. He has also voiced an interest in joining the European Union and toned down some of his early pro-Russian rhetoric.Both Washington and Brussels came down heavily on Ukraine after the elections in statements that drew only a cautious response from the Ukrainian foreign ministry. Acting US State Department spokesman Mark Toner backed the OSCE's description of the poll as "a step backwards" for democracy. "While election day was peaceful overall and observed by a large number of domestic and international observers, we are troubled by allegations of fraud and falsification in the voting process and tabulation," Toner said. The European Union also put Ukraine on notice that it would be watching it carefully after a vote foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and EU commissioner for enlargement Stefan Fule described as a "mixed picture with several shortcomings". The Ukrainian foreign ministry issued a statement Monday promising to "carefully analyse" the observers' criticisms and "improve the election legislation and practice". The European Union may now be under pressure to delay holding a summit with Ukraine that had already been pushed back until after the election and is tentatively set to take place by the start of next year.