KIEV, Dec 27: Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko won Ukraine's presidency on Monday after a historic and wrenching election in which he vowed to steer the strategic ex-Soviet nation on a new course toward the West and away from Russia.

The beaming hero of the "orange revolution" that shook Ukraine to its core for weeks appeared in front of hordes of reporters and activists at his campaign headquarters in the early hours of Monday to claim victory.

"It has happened," he said to wild cheers and applause. "For 14 years we have been independent, but now we are free. This is a victory for the Ukrainian people, for the Ukrainian nation," the 50-year-old former prime minister said as his audience broke into applause and chants of "Yu-shchenk-ko! Yu-shchen-ko!"

The central election commission said Yushchenko held nearly a 10-point lead over Yanukovich with more than 95 per cent of ballots counted. Yushchenko had 52.75 per cent of the vote, compared with the 43.46 per cent for his pro-Russia rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, a difference of nearly three million votes.

Turnout was 77.22 per cent. Yushchenko's victory marked a political earthquake in a country where only last month national television had all but banished him from the air and Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly endorsed Yanukovich as the new president.

The 54-year-old Yanukovich was officially declared winner of a Nov 21 presidential ballot and was twice congratulated by Putin but, charging fraud, Yushchenko refused to concede and organized mass "orange revolution" protests in Kiev before the supreme court threw out the poll due to huge ballot fraud.

"Today we are turning the page on human disrespect, censorship, lies and violence," he said. "People who were dragging the country toward the abyss are today stepping into the past."

After speaking at his campaign headquarters, Yushchenko returned to Kiev's central Independence Square where he told tens of thousands of cheering supporters waving orange flags, that "an independent and free Ukraine now lies before us."

He repeated his call however for his supporters to remain in the square until he is officially confirmed as the winner of the election. Yushchenko, whose support is strongest in the agrarian, nationalist Ukrainian-speaking west of the country has pledged to lead Ukraine toward eventual membership in the European Union and NATO.

Yanukovich, whose base is in the industrialized, Russian-speaking east, promised to preserve and fortify traditional ties with Russia and thus enjoyed backing from Moscow prior to the November 21 vote.

Some 12,500 observers from dozens of international and domestic institutions and a number of foreign governments were registered to monitor the voting, compared to the 5,000 who observed the previous runoff vote.

PRO-MOSCOW LEADER: Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich vowed on Monday to ask the supreme court to throw out the rerun results. "We intend to get the supreme court to review the outcome of the election and to cancel the results," he said. -AFP