KIEV (AFP) - Ukraine's hotly contested presidential election headed for a second-round showdown between a West-leaning reformer and his pro-Russia rival after an inconclusive initial vote slammed as undemocratic by international observers.
The poll pitted the former Soviet republic's prime minister and supporter of closer ties with Moscow, Viktor Yanukovich, against the main opposition leader and backer of closer relations with the West, Viktor Yushchenko.
The latest results showed the two in a dead heat, with Yanukovich collecting 40.12 percent of the popular vote to Yushchenko's 39.18 percent after nearly 95 percent votes had been counted. Turnout was above 75 percent, a record for any Ukrainian election in the post-Soviet era.
But Yushchenko's supporters -- who earlier Monday claimed victory in the first round -- still cried foul, with the opposition alliance leader Yulia Timoshenko saying that she planned to take the case to court.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said the vote not only failed to meet international norms but even marked a roll-back in the country's democratic development.
"On the basis of our findings we have to conclude that the 2004 presidential elections did not meet OSCE, Council of Europe and a number of other standards for democratic elections," the OSCE said in a statement.
"In fact, the elections constituted a step backward from the 2002 elections," the mission statement said, accusing Yanukovich in particular of making no separation between state resources and those of his campaign team.
Yanukovich made a quick but indirect apology to the OSCE by telling reporters minutes after the report came out that "we must correct mistakes made by the executive in the shortest order possible. I have issued such a decree today."
The two rivals will now head into a November 21 showdown in what could amount to a geopolitical referendum on the future of this nation of 48 million people.
Both camps will now be seeking to strike immediate, if only short-term, alliances with the communist and socialist forces, who split 10 percent between them and now play the role of kingmakers over the coming three weeks.
The veteran outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, will keep hold of the reins of power until then.
"In the future, I will do everything possible to unify my political efforts with those made by the two forces," he said of the left-wing pair.
Sunday's vote capped a campaign fraught with intrigue, accusations from both main camps of cheating and one charge of attempted assassination by poisoning, unusual even compared to the heated polls in other post-Soviet states.
Washington and Europe have tacitly supported Yushchenko's campaign, while Moscow has thrown its weight behind Yanukovich.
So, the stakes could hardly be higher for a nation which has served as an uneasy bridge between Russia and Europe during Kuchma's tenure.
Kuchma, 66, who has cultivated close ties with Moscow in steering Ukraine through most of its first 13 years as an independent country, is counting on his chosen 54-year-old successor Yanukovich to stay the same course.
But a victory for Yushchenko, 50, could initiate the transformation of Ukraine into a member of the European Union -- shifting liberal Europe's center of gravity closer to Russia's borders.
A former coal mine boss who speaks limited English and served two brief stints in prison as a youth, Yanukovich has vowed to make Russian the second official language for Ukraine and supports Moscow's plan to introduce dual citizenship for the two countries' inhabitants.
The opposition views such plans as an infringement on Ukraine's right to self-determination and on efforts to align its policies with Western clubs like the EU and NATO.
However, Yushchenko's supporters appeared happy with the first-round results, with only a few hundred people showing up for an anti-government demonstration Monday that had been expected to draw hundreds of thousands.
11/01/2004 - 16:54 GMT - AFP