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Ukraine supreme court throws out election challenge
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-01-07 08:55
Ukraine's Supreme Court threw out on Thursday a challenge to last month's
presidential election, paving the way for liberal Viktor Yushchenko to take
power next week after two weeks in political limbo.
The court rejected an appeal by former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, who
lost to Yushchenko in the Dec. 26 vote but tried to force the Central Election
Commission to reconsider complaints it already threw out last week.
"The Court has decided to deny the complaint by presidential candidate Viktor
Yanukovich. This decision is final and cannot be challenged," a Supreme Court
justice said, reading out the decision after several hours of deliberations.
The election commission said it would resume work on Sunday, after remaining
closed on Friday for Ukraine's Christmas holiday. The commission must certify
and publish the final results before Yushchenko can be declared the winner.
Yushchenko had accused Yanukovich of using his challenges to "torture the
nation." Yushchenko's followers suspected allies of outgoing President Leonid
Kuchma of dragging out the transition to win time to cover the tracks of shady
deals.
Yanukovich could mount another appeal after the commission announces its
result. But the court's decisive ruling makes it unlikely he could hold up the
process much longer.
"The odds are there will be more appeals to the Supreme Court. But it's
unlikely they would even be accepted for consideration," Yushchenko's
representative at the hearing, Svitlana Kustova, said after the judgment.
Yanukovich had long said he had little hope of success.
"This is exactly the decision we expected. For a long time the court has been
making political rather than legal rulings," his lawyer, Svitlana Shapiro, said.
DECISIVE ROLE
The same court played a decisive role in bringing Yushchenko to power by
throwing out the result of a rigged November election after Yanukovich was
declared the winner.
Yushchenko's supporters, who demonstrated in their hundreds of thousands
against the rigged poll in November, have maintained a tent city on the streets
of the capital Kiev to keep up pressure during the drawn-out transition.
In the days after the Dec. 26 election, one member of the outgoing cabinet
was found dead in his sauna with a gunshot to the head, other officials were
sacked by Kuchma and some are rumored to have left the country.
Yushchenko's allies, meanwhile, have been jockeying for positions in his new
government. Yushchenko is not expected to announce a line-up until after his
inauguration, which most politicians expect at the end of next week.
Picking a new prime minister will be tricky because Yushchenko's supporters
are divided among several factions in parliament. Even if they agree, they do
not have enough votes collectively to guarantee any candidate's confirmation.
Yushchenko has so far given few clues.
"We will count on new names," was all he would say about his new government
on Wednesday at a ski resort in the Carpathian mountains of western Ukraine,
where he has been on holiday during the drawn-out process of officially
declaring a winner.
His spokeswoman said he would return to Kiev on Thursday from the holiday,
which he spent with his friend and ally Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili
-- who also took power after massive public protests following a rigged
election.
Saakashvili flew home after a week in Ukraine.
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