An official tally of run-off results from over 40 percent of Ukraine's polling stations gives 50.09 percent of the vote to the leader of the opposition Regions Party Viktor Yanukovich, and 44.39 percent, to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Yanukovich's lead continues to shrink. Some 4.4 percent of the tallied ballots give the thumbs down to both candidates.
According to head of the National Electoral Commission Andrei Magera, there were no significant irregularities in Sunday's voting. He also says the turnout was validating and the probability of a dead heat between the candidates is quite negligible.
The Tymoshenko campaign says a ballot count of its own puts the rivals neck-and-neck, each with 46 percent. An independent count by the Yanukovich campaign puts the Regions leader 4 and a half percentage points ahead of Tymoshenko. The Tymoshenko team denies contemplating protests in case Yanukovich is declared winner.
Mr Yanukovich has already spoken about plans to replace Mrs Tymoshenko with the banker Sergei Tigipko or the former parliamentary speaker Aresni Yatseniuk. They were respectively the third and the fourth biggest vote-winners in the opening round of the elections on January 17.
No matter who comes on top after the run-off, Russia is prepared to establish close working ties with the next Ukrainian President. The Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov told this to reporters in Kiev on Sunday.
In Moscow meantime, the analyst Dr Gleb Pavlovski expects a victory by Viktor Yanukovich to be followed by a rapid demise of the pro-Tymoshenko faction in the Ukrainian Parliament. According to the Russian Lower House's deputy post-Soviet affairs head Konstantin Zatulin, Tymoshenko already lacks the support to replay events in 2004 when she mobilized thousands of people to rally behind her in Kiev streets.
Analysts in Kiev say they do not expect any post-election unrest in their country to last more than ten days or be settled in ways other than litigation in courts.
Final official counts from the run-off should be announced before the 17th. The next President will formally assume office within one month of this announcement.
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