Ukrainian Prime Minister and defeated presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko said Saturday she had proof that last week's vote was rigged, and vowed to challenge the result in court.

Opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych narrowly won last Sunday's vote by 3.5 percentage points in a preliminary count, but Tymoshenko has yet to concede defeat.

"I want to clearly state: Yanukovych is not our president," she said in a televised broadcast to the nation. "Whatever happens in the future, he will never become the legitimately elected president of Ukraine."

In her first public appearance since the election, Tymoshenko urged Ukranians to support her legal battle to overturn the election results. She did not, however, call on them to take to the streets in mass protests as she did when she successfully challenged the results of the 2004 election in the Orange Revolution.

International observers have described the election as free and fair.


cmk/AP/Reuters
Editor: Andreas Illmer