UKRAINE: Victor Yanukovich attends prayer service ahead of Sunday's presidential run-off

Record ID: 572636

  • Title: UKRAINE: Victor Yanukovich attends prayer service ahead of Sunday's presidential run-off
  • Date: 7th February 2010
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) VIKTOR YANUKOVICH SAYING: "Very soon new times will begin in Ukraine, God bless (it would be) good times." KIEV PECHERSK MONASTERY
  • Embargoed: 22nd February 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Ukraine
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA46T0A7J58VT41DVAWXEA8JDTP
  • Story Text: Ukraine's presidential frontrunner Victor Yanukovich says he hopes for "new times" for the country.
    Presidential candidate Victor Yanukovich attended prayer services at Kiev's Pechersk monastery on Saturday (February 6), a day ahead of the presidential run-off.
    The prayers were led by Metropolitan Volodymyr of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox church.
    Many commentators are predicting a narrow victory by Yanukovich over rival Yulia Tymoshenko on Sunday, after a bitter campaign of smears and insults in which each has accused the other of planning electoral fraud.
    And if the margin of victory is slender on either side, the other camp seems certain to challenge the result.
    But 59-year old Yanukovich remained positive.
    "Very soon new times will begin in Ukraine, God bless (it would be) good times," Yanukovich told journalists after the service.
    A decisive outcome should reset the ex-Soviet republic's relations with its former imperial master, Russia, which have plummeted under the pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko, and decide the speed of Ukraine's path into the European mainstream.
    A return to stability, after five years of infighting between the presidency and the prime minister's office, would help restore investor confidence in the struggling economy, particularly hard hit by the global downturn.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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