Ukraine Election Loser Again Delays Inauguration

The loser of last month's presidential election in Ukraine again delayed his opponent's inauguration on Thursday by failing to deliver a promised court appeal, infuriating the president elect's team.

Moscow-backed former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, who lost by nearly eight percentage points, has managed to hold off the inauguration of liberal president-elect Viktor Yushchenko for nearly three weeks through legal challenges to the vote.

Supporters of Yushchenko, who hoped to stage a grand inauguration this week with dignitaries from around the world to mark Yushchenko's West-leaning "orange revolution," expressed their mounting exasperation at the delay.

"An artificial delay in the process of newly-elected President Viktor Yushchenko taking power is under way. It is a deliberate policy of Yanukovich's team," Roman Zvarych, a top Yushchenko aide, told Reuters.

Another Yushchenko aide, Oleksander Zinchenko, said on Wednesday that the outgoing authorities were using the delay to steal everything down to the doorknobs of their offices.

Yanukovich, who acknowledges he has no hope of reversing the result, says he is only trying to protect Ukrainians' rights.

The Central Election Commission declared Yushchenko the winner on Monday, but the inauguration cannot be held until the result is published in an official newspaper, which the Supreme Court has blocked until Yanukovich has a last chance to appeal.

The court has quickly thrown out all of Yanukovich's appeals so far, but cannot do so until he submits them. For two days running his team promised to submit the appeal, only to say at the last minute that they needed another day to prepare it. Under the law, they have until Monday.