Pro-Russia candidate tipped in Ukraine poll

Voters appeared to favouring a leader who would steer the country away from the pro-Western course set by the 2004 Orange Revolution.

The National Election Poll expected the pro-Russian Mr Yanukovych to finish first in yesterday’s runoff vote, taking 48.7 per cent against 45.5 per cent for Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

The stone-faced political leader from Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east fought hard against Ms Tymoshenko, whose impassioned leadership of the 2004 Orange protests made her an international celebrity.

Yesterday’s vote appeared to be much closer than the first round on January 17, where Mr Yanukovych had a 10 percentage point lead over Ms Tymoshenko.

Ms Tymoshenko has vowed to challenge a vote she claims was rigged but Mr Yanukovych’s supporters were camped out in front of the Central Election Commission headquarters in Kiev in an apparent effort to prevent Ms Tymoshenko’s supporters from blockading the building.

Mr Yanukovych has pledged to restore order and says he will try to balance ties to east and west but he represents the hopes of many in eastern Ukraine, who feel they have been relegated to second-class status by their countrymen in western Ukraine.

Ms Tymoshenko sought to depict herself as a populist whose appeal crossed Ukraine’s east-west divide but she has struggled to cope with Ukraine’s severe economic crisis.

Mr Yanukovych was accused of massive vote fraud in the 2004 president ballot, which was thrown out by the courts.