Yulia Tymoshenko Photo: EPA
Ukraine’s prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, threatened Thursday to call people onto the streets to munt a second “Orange Revolution” if rival Viktor Yanukovich tried to rig Sunday’s presidential vote.
Mr Yanukovich’s Regions Party earlier pushed through parliament an amendement to eelctoral rules that allows vote-counting at polling stations across Ukraine to go ahead whether or not representatives of both candidates are present.
PM Yulia Tymoshenko said the change would help supporters of Viktor Yanukovych to commit fraud. Mr Yanukovych said his rival’s complaints were a sign of weakness.
She said: “If Yanukovich wants an honest fight, we are ready to compete with him, but if he seeks to cheat, we will be able to rebuff him in a way he has never seen, even in 2004,” she said.”
Sunday’s vote is a run-off between the winner and runner-up of the first round on 17 January. President Yushchenko was ejected in the first round.
Mrs Tymoshenko has called on her followers to take to the streets if she is defeated in Sunday’s poll, saying the protests could be larger than those of 2004’s Orange Revolution, which swept Mr Yushchenko to power.
The BBC reported Mrs Tymoshenko as saying: “If we are unable to guarantee the honest expression of the people’s will and honest results, we will mobilise the people”.
“I ask you not to allow Yanukovych to rape our democracy, our election and our country!”
The election result will be crucial for ex-Soviet republic’s future relations with its former Soviet master and its place in Europe.
