WASHINGTON, Nov 22 (AFP) - The United States said Monday that Ukraine's weekend presidential run-off was marred by "very disturbing patterns of abuse" and threatened Kiev with sanctions unless the deficiencies are resolved in the post-election period.
"The United States is deeply concerned over the elections in Ukraine," deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said. "There are reports of widespread abuse and fraud in the second round of Ukraine's presidential elections.
"We call on the Ukrainian authorities to curb additional abuse and fraud, to uphold its international commitments to democracy and human rights and to act to ensure an outcome that reflects the will of the Ukrainian people," he told reporters.
"These charges need to be thoroughly investigated and cleared up before the international community can have confidence that the results of the Ukrainian elections reflect the will of the people."
Ereli said Washington shared assessments from international observers that Sunday's poll failed to meet democratic standards and made clear that the United States was prepared to make good on longstanding threats to review relations with Ukraine if the flaws were not corrected.
"Should, in the final analysis, this election prove to be fundamentally flawed and tarnished, we would certainly need to review our relations with the Ukraine and consider further steps against individuals who had engaged in fraud," he said.
Ereli declined to elaborate but other officials said the review would cover the entire range of US-Ukraine programs from economic to cultural and military and that visa bans and asset freezes could be imposed on those found to have been guilty of electoral malfeasance.
US President George W. Bush had sent a letter to outgoing President Leonid Kuchma on the eve of the vote warning that future relations between Washington and Kiev would be determined by the conduct of the election.
Earlier Monday, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and a group led by US Senator Richard Lugar denounced the election as unfree and unfair with the US lawmaker accusing Kuchma's government of helping to rig the vote in favor of pro-Moscow prime minister Viktor Yanukovich.
"It is now apparent that a concerted and forceful program of election-day fraud and abuse was enacted with either the leadership or cooperation of governmental authorities," said Lugar, the chairman of the powerful US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"I believe that President Kuchma has the responsibility and the opportunity for producing, even at this point, an outcome which is fair and responsible," he said.
With 99.14 percent of polling stations reporting, Yanukovich had secured 49.42 percent of the vote, compared with 46.69 for Western-leaning Viktor Yushchenko.
Yushchenko has protested the results, which the OSCE said fell well short of international democratic standards, and have also been rejected by several city councils and tens of thousands of opposition supporters who massed in central Kiev to denounce the poll amid tight security.
Ereli called on the Ukrainian authorities "to show restraint" in dealing with peaceful protests and urged "all sides to express themselves only in a nonviolent manner."
11/22/2004 19:02 GMT - AFP