But his supporters alleged fraud and poured into
the streets of Kyiv, where they paralysed Ukraine's government and captured
world attention with 17 days of continuous protest. Two weeks ago, Ukraine's Supreme Court annulled
the previous elections and ordered a full replay on Dec. 26.
Most observer groups, including the powerful Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe, Canada Corps have certified the
election as meeting international standards. Russia's 900-strong observer
team, which converged on the pro-Yushchenko western Ukraine, reported Monday
that, although the elections were "not quite irreproachable," they did
generally reflect the will of the Ukrainian people. Turner said Canadian
monitors found only minor violations of proper electoral procedure. "Some
(of the infractions) were technical, some were weaknesses of human error,"
he said. "None were deliberate.
"A good many were of a kind you could find in a
Canadian constituency in an election."
Among the problems noted by Canadian observers
in a few polling stations were the presence of police near voting booths,
refusal to admit international observers, voting without proper
identification,
improperly sealed ballot boxes and incomplete
voter lists.
The most serious infractions witnessed by
Canadians included an election official in Chernihiv coaching people to vote
for Yanukovych and, in the eastern region of Donetsk, physical intimidation
of a voter who refused to show his marked ballot to an election official.
Nevertheless, the interim Canadian monitors'
report says "the overall impression drawn by our observers is one of
fairness." Turner said he conveyed his conclusions in a phone call to Prime
Minister Paul Martin earlier Monday. "Prime Minister Martin was happy with
this popular result and congratulated the Ukrainian people for this effort,"
he said.