Ukraine's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the last legal contest to the recent election of President-elect Viktor Yuschenko. The high court ruled as groundless a suit by Yuschenko's opponent, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, that the December 26 vote violated election law because the Central Election Committee (CEC) refused to review his complaints. The decision makes Yuschenko's inauguration legally inevitable. He is most likely to take the oath of office in the second week of January, according to Ukrainian new reports. Yanukovich's lawyers had argued the CEC refused to accept additional evidence connected with the case, but testimony in the high court contradicted the allegations. Yanukovich's claims were baseless and the CEC acted correctly, the justices said. Yuschenko defeated Yanukovich by an eight per cent margin in the December vote. Widespread indignation over vote-fixing in Yanukovich's favour in a November 21 election sparked the largest mass demonstrations in Ukrainian history. The Supreme Court annulled the results of the November 21 vote, which Yanukovich won. ---SP 0009 Local Time 2109 GMT
