KIEV, Ukraine -- Exit polls projected an easy victory Sunday for opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko in a bitter campaign that required an unprecedented three ballots and Supreme Court intervention to pick a new Ukrainian leader.
Elated opposition supporters flooded Kiev's Independence Square, the center of protests after the Nov. 21 election that was beset with fraud allegations and eventually annulled. Music blared from loudspeakers and fireworks lit up the sky. In Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's home base of Donetsk, the streets were largely empty, with only a few people stumbling home from the bars.
The three exit polls projected Yushchenko winning by at least 15 percentage points, and with ballots from just more than 30 percent of precincts counted he was leading with 57.43 percent to 38.89 percent for Yanukovych, election officials said. Final official results were not expected until Monday.
A dejected-appearing Yanukovych, who had the backing of the outgoing Ukrainian president and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, refused to concede defeat in a newsconference begun before the polls closed.
"I am ready to lead the state," he said, hinting he might file a court challenge. But with a nod to the exit polls, Yanukovych said: "If we fail, we will form a strong opposition." First official results were expected Monday morning.
The projected winner made no immediate public comment after the exit polls were released but was confident as he cast his ballot earlier in the day.
"What we did during the last 30 days was a tribute to our ancestors," Yushchenko told reporters at Kiev's trade union building. "I know they are looking at us from heaven and they are applauding."
The election gripped the world's attention, not only for the bizarre dioxin poisoning of Yushchenko -- which severely disfugured his face and which he blamed on the political opposition -- but also for the flurry of recriminations that flew between Russia and the West after last month's court-annulled run-off. The Ukrainian Central Election Commission ruled Yanukovych had won the November ballot.
More than 12,000 international observers were posted at polling stations and counting locations to guard against the fraud that marred the November vote and spawned the so-called "Orange Revolution," named for Yushchenko's campaign color.
Tens of thousands of Yushchenko supporters filled the streets in central Kiev for weeks after that vote, blockading government buildings and eventually leading to Supreme Court intervention. The protests were a strong echo of the anti-communist revolutions that swept other East European countries in 1989-90.
In Moscow, the Kremlin had strongly supported Yanukovych and charged the West in general and the United States in particular with meddling in Ukrainian internal affairs for its clear preference for Yushchenko, a former Central Bank chief and prime minister.
The United States, the European Union and NATO all voiced concerns of Kremlin heavy-handedness in backing Yanukovych, the hand-picked successor of the increasingly authoritarian outgoing President Leonid Kuchma.
Yushchenko promised economic and political reforms while favoring closer ties to the Western democracies of the EU and NATO. Yanukovych was the candidate of the status quo, promising stability and even closer ties to Moscow, its former imperial and Soviet-era master. Yanukovych promised to further boost Ukraine's economy -- which enjoys the fastest growth rate in Europe -- and pledged an increase in wages and pensions.
Some eastern regions, fearing discrimination if Yushchenko were to win, had briefly threatened to seek autonomy.
