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Ukraine party selects favourite for presidential vote
AFP - Saturday, October 24
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Ukraine's Regions Party, which draws strength from the country's Russian-speaking east, on Friday formally anointed the front-runner as its candidate in presidential elections. Viktor Yanukovich, who favours closer ties with Russia but has in recent years sought to shake off his image as a servant of Moscow, is currently well ahead in opinion polls for the January 17 vote.
KIEV (AFP) - – Ukraine's Regions Party, which draws strength from the country's Russian-speaking east, on Friday formally anointed the front-runner as its candidate in presidential elections.
Viktor Yanukovich, who favours closer ties with Russia but has in recent years sought to shake off his image as a servant of Moscow, is currently well ahead in opinion polls for the January 17 vote.
The Regions Party approved Yanukovich's candidacy at a congress in Kiev with all 592 delegates present voting in favour of his nomination, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reported.
His main rival is set to be Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a pro-European Union figure but also known for her shifting allegiances, who is due to declare her candidacy at a rally in Kiev on Saturday.
According to the latest poll by the Razumkov Centre, a research centre in Kiev, Yanukovich is heading for 22-27 percent of the vote while Tymoshenko is currently behind with 13-16 percent.
In an indication he has no intention of bringing Ukraine closer to NATO, Yanukovich told the congress: "I will give Ukraine a new foreign policy -- Ukraine will be a state outside of any bloc."
Yanukovich, who now emphasises the importance of integration with the EU while underlining the continued necessity of good ties with Russia, said he would aim for balance in his foreign policy.
"The priority of the foreign policy will be the revival a full partnership with Russia and also the development of partnership with the United States and European Union," he added.
With Ukraine still grappling with a major economic crisis that is expected to see the economy shrink by 15 percent in 2009, he said a "main aim is a European level of life for Ukrainians."
He said the current authorities "live in one country and the people in another" and accused the government of pushing Ukraine to a state of bankruptcy where it can only survive on foreign loans.
The number three candidate, former parliament speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk, 35, on Friday became the first leading politician to register his candidacy.
Yatseniuk has been dubbed the "Ukrainian Obama" in some quarters for his young and dynamic image although he has so far failed to build up his support.
Yanukovich was the losing candidate in the 2004 presidential elections, in which he was initially declared the winner but then defeated in a re-run after the courts upheld his opponents' charges of mass vote rigging.
At the time, he was portrayed by his foes as the intransigent pro-Russian face of the old Ukraine due to his past job as prime minister under president Leonid Kuchma between 2002 and 2004.
His pro-Western rival Viktor Yushchenko became president in what was dubbed the "Orange Revolution" although political infighting and a dire economic crisis meant that the euphoria of those days has long since died.
Since then Yanukovich has undergone a makeover, at least in style. PR consultants have spruced up his image and his party has undertaken deft advertising campaigns in its trademark blue and white colours.
He has built his political reputation on an image as a street fighter -- the orphan who lost his mother at the age of two had to make his own way in the eastern mining city of Donetsk.
The rough past also has a darker side. Yanukovich served two prison sentences for theft in his youth, although these were struck off the register in Soviet times.
Married with two sons, he enjoys "tennis, hunting and pigeon-breeding", according to the Regions Party website. But in keeping with his more Westernised image, he is also said to have taken up golf.
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