Reform vote falters in Ukraine

Kuchma's allies say they expect to emerge as the largest parliamentary party

KIEV, Ukraine -- President Leonid Kuchma's ally said he was confident his party had won Ukraine's parliamentary elections despite partial results showing the party trailing.

Meanwhile, a reformist's party's lead in exit polls dipped when actual results started coming in.

In Sunday's poll, marred by violence and opposition allegations of fraud, Volodymyr Lytvyn and his conservative pro-Kuchma For United Ukraine bloc were challenged by the Communists and ex-premier Viktor Yushchenko's reformists.

With nearly a third of the votes counted, pro-Western Yushchenko was first with 20.3 percent, the Communists a close second with 20.2 percent and Lytvyn's group third with almost 15.45 percent.

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But Lytvyn, who heads Kuchma's administration, told Reuters that the figures would turn around and award him a victory. That could pave the way for a change in the law to let his boss stand for a currently banned third term as president.

The elections were criticised by a Council of Europe election mission, whose chief blasted the "incompetence" which brought huge queues at polling stations, with many people giving up and going home.

In the results, the Socialist Party of ex-parliament speaker Oleksandr Moroz had 8 percent and the fiercely anti-Kuchma party of ex-deputy premier Julia Tymoshenko had 6 percent.

Sunday's vote was seen as gauging Kuchma's popularity after eight years leading 49 million people in his France-sized nation, which is strategically situated on Europe's eastern flank.

Voters' decisions hinged on whether to stick with Kuchma's controversy-shadowed but stable status quo or risk reforms.

The stormy campaign saw two candidates killed, biased media coverage and allegations of Soviet-style vote-tampering in favour of pro-presidential candidates.

Nearly 1,000 foreign monitors were watching the voting for violations. Election Commission chairman Mykhailo Riabets cited minor irregularities but said these would not affect the overall results.

The independent Ukrainian Voters Committee, however, expressed concern about multiple problems, including about 500 ballots that disappeared from a polling station in Sevastopol and false ballots found in the town of Kramatorsk.

A voter checks the list of candidates

Accusations of corruption were stoked on the eve of the election when opposition party candidate Mykola Shkriblyak was shot dead by unidentified gunmen.

The head of the Council of Europe observer mission Hanne Severinsen told Reuters the election was "completely incompetent in the way it was directed."

"Queues were huge and people just gave up. ... This means fewer voters were able to cast their vote."

Severinsen, who criticised the campaign for widespread intimidation and the control that pro-presidential parties had over local electoral commissions, said that in many constituencies voters were confused about procedures.

The Danish liberal said she had monitored the election in a Kiev suburb where 3,000 voters were due to take part in the election, but more than 4,000 turned up and cast their vote.

"That is not illegal but it can change the vote radically," she said.

"Voting took place in a small dark room and it was not clear how to handle the five ballot papers," she said. Ukraine voted for local councils on the same day.

Only eight people were employed to oversee the election in that constituency after 10 others were sacked a day earlier.

"Compared with the last election, it did not function technically," she said, referring to a presidential election in 1999 which was also criticised by observers.

Ukraine under Kuchma has lagged economically, wallowed in corruption controversies and frustrated foreign investors.

Kuchma's reputation suffered a blow after the death in 2000 of outspoken journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, which prompted protests by opponents who accused the president of involvement. Kuchma has denied the charge.

Despite Kuchma's troubles, many Ukrainians fear his opponents will resurrect botched reform plans of the 1990s, and they see the president as a guarantor of stability.