Yanukovych Calls On Tymoshenko to Quit

KIEV — Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych called on defeated rival Yulia Tymoshenko to resign as prime minister Wednesday, turning up the pressure as her camp contested the result of Sunday's presidential election.

Setting out his program, Yanukovych said relations with Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union would be his priority. But Ukraine needed help "from West and East" to stabilize its economy and restructure its "financial obligations," he said.

With all votes counted in the Central Election Commission, Yanukovych ended with 48.95 percent to Tymoshenko's 45.47 percent, a lead of 3.48 percentage points — or some 888,000 votes.

Bond yields jumped after Yanukovych's statement on financial obligations, indicating negative sentiment on Ukraine, as investors worried that he meant to restructure government debt, which would amount to default. But analysts said he was more likely to be talking about restructuring nonsovereign debt.

"I officially turn to the prime minister and call on her to resign and cross to the opposition," Yanukovych, 59, said in his first policy statement since the election. "The country does not need another political crisis. The nation has spoken for a change in power and the prime minister should make the right decision and enter opposition."

The charismatic Tymoshenko has not been seen in public since election night, when she urged her regional representatives to check the vote-count carefully and "fight for every vote."

Her supporters have forced a recount of the vote in some regions to prove what they allege is cynical fraud by the Yanukovych camp. This is denied by the Yanukovych side.

On Wednesday, Tymoshenko canceled a weekly government meeting and traveled east to Zaporizhya to attend a funeral.

Some of her supporters have expressed doubts about the challenge she is mounting. They say she would be better off going into the opposition and fighting Yanukovych, while privately they conceded that they are not clear on what her strategy is.

Few people, beyond a tight inner circle, have spoken to her since Sunday night, they said. One of her lawmakers, Svyatoslav Oliynyk, expected her to step down and cross to the opposition.

"How does one explain this silence? It is not the silence of lambs, more that of a lioness about to spring," analyst Volodomyr Fesenko was quoted as saying by Interfax-Ukraine.

In his statement, Yanukovych said: "We need help from the West and the East in stabilizing the economic situation and restructuring the financial obligations."

He ordered a new government to turn to Ukraine's creditors and developed countries "with the aim of reaching agreements and direct help to solve the economic crisis."

He did not say which obligations he meant. Some of the difficult payments for Ukraine, which has been battered by the economic crisis, have been sovereign and quasi-sovereign eurobonds, domestic T-bills and payments for Russian gas.

He made no direct reference to the International Monetary Fund, which suspended a $16.4 billion bailout program late last year but whose aid had been vital in propping up the state's finances in 2009.

His comments on ties with Russia and other former Soviet republics confirmed that he will tilt Ukraine's policy back toward its old lines after a deep chill under the outgoing pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko.

But he also said Ukraine would pursue negotiations for an association agreement with the European Union.

Though tensions remained high, there was no sign of people taking to the streets in support of the fiery prime minister, a co-architect of the Orange Revolution that overturned Yanukovych's victory in a rigged election in 2004.

A key date is Feb. 17, when official results are declared and a president-elect will be named. Any proof of cheating assembled by the Tymoshenko camp has to go before a higher court shortly after that date.

Assuming it goes ahead, a Yanukovych inauguration would take place around the middle of March.