With more than 96 percent of the votes counted, Yanukovich has declared victory with a narrow lead of 48.5 percent over his opponent, current Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko who garnered 46 percent of the votes.
Yanukovich remained the winner of Sunday’s vote. With votes still to come from his strongholds in the south and east, the gap with Ms. Tymoshenko was expected to increase rather than shrink, Commission member Mykhailo Okhendovskiy said.
Analysts said the slender gap might encourage Ms. Tymoshenko, who earlier warned Mr. Yanukovich against celebrating victory prematurely, to press for advantage or contest the result.
Yanukovich is seen as the pro-Russian candidate and is expected to move quickly towards improving strained ties with Ukraine’s huge neighbour. Yanukovich was denied the presidency in 2004 in a bitter election whose results were later annulled.
Tymoshenko, who said her team is doing a “parallel count” of the ballots, is expected to challenge the results, according to reports. “Depending on the final results, potential non-acceptance and further actions to challenge the results, we would view this election outcome as slightly negative for markets,” said analysts at Barclays Capital in a note to clients. “Given the strong performance of Ukraine credit over the past couple of weeks and its resilience during the recent market weakness, risks seem skewed to the downside at the moment.”
