Yushchenko Takes Oath as Ukraine's President

As blogged live by Veronica Khokhlova:

The Oath - his right hand on the 16th-century New Testament and on the Constitution; then he signs some paper, shakes hand with the head of the Constitutional Court and kisses both books. The Constitutional Court head announces that Kuchma is no longer the President. At last.

See also here.

CNN has the full story

Ukraine Court Dismisses Yanukovych Appeal

The Associated Press reports that Ukraine's Supreme Court rejected losing presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych's appeal of last month's repeat election:

Yanukovych, who has one more chance to appeal, has said openly he had little hope of success, but he vowed to fight against the Dec. 26 vote, which preliminary results show Yushchenko winning.

Yanukovych's campaign had said their main appeal is still to come and would be filed with the Central Election Commission only after the Central Election Commission announces the final results.

The campaign will then seek to prove that massive fraud made it impossible to determine the winner of the vote.

From California Yankee.

Ukrainian President Kuchma Accepts Yanukovych Resignation

The Associated Press reports that Ukranian President Kuchma formally accepted the resignation of Yanukovych as prime minister on Wednesday:

Yanukovych's resignation immediately triggers the dissolution of the entire 20-member Cabinet. Kuchma now has 60 days to appoint a new government - though he is likely to appoint a caretaker government until a new president is inaugurated.

Yanukovych announced his resignation on New Year's Eve.

From California Yankee.

Yanukovych Resigns

Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovych resigned yesterday, saying he has little hope of winning the presidency of this former Soviet republic. But he vowed to continue his court battle to overturn last week's elections, won by his pro-Western opponent, Viktor A. Yushchenko.

Yanukovych's resignation, which appeared to take effect immediately, was announced as Yushchenko and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili prepared to welcome the new year side by side on Kiev's Independence Square, the center of mass protests that overturned the political order in this nation of 48 million.

The joint appearance of two post-Soviet politicians who have openly and actively courted the West is certain to further irk the Kremlin, which has strongly supported Yanukovych.

Yushchenko easily won the court-ordered presidential revote, but Yanukovych has refused to recognize the results, vowing to challenge the results in the Supreme Court. He resigned during a New Year's Eve address to the nation, his first significant concession since Sunday's vote.

"We are still fighting, but I don't have much hope," Yanukovych said. "I will act as an independent politician, as the rightful winner of the legitimate Nov. 21 election."

Read more....

Election Officials Reject Yanukovych's Appeal

Election officials on Thursday rejected Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's voluminous challenge to results showing he lost this week's presidential revote, saying he did not prove any widespread violations.

Yanukovych's campaign team vowed to take their legal fight for the presidency to Ukraine's Supreme Court even as reformer Viktor Yushchenko mapped out plans for his inauguration and first 100 days in office.

"The vote has changed the country and it changed us," Yushchenko told Ukrainians in a New Year's greeting issued four days after the former Soviet republic's third presidential balloting in two months.

Update: Fox News is just reporting (no link yet) that Yankovych has agreed to step down.

Yushchenko Declares Victory

Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko declared victory Monday in Ukraine's fiercely contested presidential election, telling thousands of supporters they had taken their country to a new political era after a bitterly fought campaign that required an unprecedented three ballots and Supreme Court intervention against fraud.

"We have been independent for 14 years but we were not free," Yushchenko told the festive crowd in Kiev's central Independence Square, the center of weeks of protests after the fraudulent and now-annulled Nov. 21 ballot in which Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych had been declared the winner.

"Now we can say this is a thing of the past. Now we are facing an independent and free Ukraine."

Read more...

Exit Polls: Liberal Yushchenko Wins Ukraine Election

Exit polls in the re-run of Ukraine's presidential election Sunday said liberal challenger Viktor Yushchenko had beaten Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich by a wide margin.

Yushchenko, who called crowds of supporters into the streets to denounce cheating in the last poll, scored 56.5 percent to 41.3 percent for Yanukovich, according to a poll by the Kiev International Institute for Sociology and the Razumkov Center.

A second poll, by the Center for Social Monitoring, gave him an even wider lead -- putting his share of the vote at 58.1 percent and Yanukovich's at 38.4 percent.

Yanukovich had initially been declared the winner in last month's run-off vote, but his victory was overturned by the Supreme Court which agreed with opposition charges that the election was rigged in his favor.

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Polls are Open/Updates

The polls are open in Ukraine:

Rival candidates Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych are facing off. This repeat election was triggered by a fraudulent runoff vote and protests resulting in an unprecedented re-vote

• Liberal Yuschenko is predicting victory

• Some of the election laws that caused the controversy in the last vote have been thrown out.

However:

Ukraine's Constitutional Court on Saturday overturned a new amendment to the country's election laws that had been intended to minimize the chances for fraud, but it dismissed other legal challenges and cleared the way for a second presidential runoff today. The court ruled that a new limit on the number of Ukrainians who could vote at home — a major demand of the opposition candidate, Viktor A. Yushchenko, following the disputed runoff on Nov. 21 — violated the constitutional rights of ill or disabled voters who would not otherwise be able to cast ballots.

• Ukranians except violence around election

For an up close and personal look at the elections, check out Neeka's Backblog, where Veronica Khokhlova is in the thick of it - she has many updates plus photos.

TCP will keep you updated on the latest developments in this story, so keep checking back here.

Ukraine Election Rerun in Doubt

UKRAINE'S constitutional court has ruled that recently adopted electoral changes were unconstitutional, throwing into doubt the legitimacy of a rerun presidential vote set for tomorrow.

The court said that changes limiting so-called home voting to only the severely-disabled violated voters' rights and had to be annulled immediately.

“The changes are ruled unconstitutional and annulled from the day of the ruling,” Mykola Selivon, head of the court, said.

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