Saturday, February 20, 2010

Timoshenko Drops Appeal, Cedes Victory to Yanukovych

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko withdrew her appeal against the Feb. 7 presidential election result in the country’s Supreme Administrative Court, ceding victory to Viktor Yanukovich. Timoshenko decided to give up her fight for the presidency after the court rejected her request for a recount of votes and questioning of witnesses, the premier said in a statement on her Web site today. Yanukovych had been declared winner by the Central Election Commission and is due to be sworn into office on Feb. 25.
“There is no sense” in continuing the hearing, Timoshenko said in the statement. “The court has refused to find out the truth and I wanted to stop this performance that has nothing in common with justice.” The Kiev-based court agreed to accept Timoshenko’s retraction and will not consider the case, said the court’s spokeswoman Maria Shvynko, adding that the court rejects Timoshenko’s accusation. International observers have said the vote met democratic standards and the U.S., European Union, Russia and NATO have recognized Yanukovych’s victory. The Kremlin’s press service said in an e-mailed statement that President Dmitry Medvedev spoke with Yanukovych, congratulated him again and agreed that Yanukovych will visit Moscow in the first ten days of March. Still, Timoshenko claimed she had evidence that more than 1 million votes were falsified.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aG..oP.ESoBg&pos=9

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