Political scientist: BYT will try to challenge result of run-off election

Kyiv, February 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYT) will try to challenge in the courts the results of voting in the second round of Ukraine's presidential election, Director of the Penta Center for Applied Political Studies Volodymyr Fesenko has said.

He expressed his view at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Monday.

"A gap of 2%, or even 3%, is slight, and the BYT will certainly try to challenge the results of voting at the level of district election commissions. Then the conflict could be brought to a higher level, but [Prime Minister] Yulia Tymoshenko's position at the Higher Administrative Court will be a losing one, so there are no grounds to expect a vote rerun," Fesenko said.

He also said he did not rule out that if a political and legal compromise is sought, the Regions Party would by no means accept the option of holding the third round of the election.

"I don't rule out a vote recount as happened, for example, in Romania. Votes could be recounted in the disputed regions and disputed polling stations," Fesenko said.