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This is an archive article published on December 29, 2004

Yushchenko for blockade after rival refuses to go

Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, winner of Ukraine's re-run of a rigged presidential election, called on his supporters on Tuesday to bl...

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Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, winner of Ukraine’s re-run of a rigged presidential election, called on his supporters on Tuesday to block the country’s government building.

“I want to say there should be no government meeting … Dear friends, I ask you to strengthen a blockade of the government building tomorrow from early in the morning,” Yushchenko told thousands of his supporters in the capital Kiev’s Independence square.

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, who has vowed to challenge the election results, said he would return to work and hold a government meeting on Wednesday.

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Although official confirmation could take several days, the results, with 100 per cent of the vote counted, gave Yushchenko 51.99 percent of the vote to the premier’s 44.19 per cent.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities opened a criminal probe into the death of the Transport Minister, found with a gunshot wound to the head. The prosecutor general’s office said it believed Heorhiy Kyrpa, also one of Ukraine’s leading businessmen, had killed himself, but suggested he might have been driven to it. Kyrpa had close ties to President Leonid Kuchma. —Reuters

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