Yanukovych Warns of Rigged Vote

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's main opposition leader, Viktor Yanukovych, on Saturday accused the authorities of preparing to commit widespread fraud in March 26 parliamentary elections, but the governing party denied the claim.

Viktor Yanukovych
"The authorities have worked out a scheme of mass falsifications in all Ukraine's regions ... to remain in power," Yanukovych said in Kiev at a meeting of his Party of Regions.

Yanukovych was defeated by Viktor Yushchenko in a court-ordered rerun of the presidential election in 2004. His party is leading in opinion polls, but apparently far short of getting a majority.

Borys Bespaly, a top official of the pro-Yushchenko Our Ukraine party, called Yanukovych's accusations a "loser's poor fantasy" and "nothing but an attempt to attract attention."

Yanukovych said the purported fraud included deliberately wrong translation of the voters' lists from Russian into Ukrainian in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east.

Source: The Moscow Times