As of early Monday, between 70% and 80% of ballots had been counted and reported to the Central Election Commission in western and central regions, such as Khmelnytsk and Vinnytsia.

But some eastern and southern regions, such as Luhansk, managed to count only 32% of all ballots as of the same time.

“This is not normal,” Iryna Stavniychuk, Yushchenko’ representative to the CEC, said, adding that “the vote counting should have been much faster.”

But Mykhaylo Okhendovskiy, a CEC member loyal to Yanukovych, said the delays are caused by thorough ballot counting. Also, he said that Donetsk and other regions have higher density of people living in the area.

“When you count ballots high speed is an enemy of accuracy,” Okhendovskiy said.

Meanwhile, after the vote counting accelerated later on Monday, Parliamentary Speaker Oleksandr Moroz’s Socialist Party, an ally of the Regions Party, had unexpectedly emerged as a group that had managed to score just enough votes to get in to Parliament.

None of three major exit polls on Sunday showed the Socialist Party as entering Parliament, raising suspicions about possible manipulations.

The election of the Socialist Party to Parliament would make it more difficult for former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to form the pro-Western government with Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense.

The data transmissions were apparently delayed as tallies from individual polling stations had been repeatedly sent back for corrections, which had eventually boosted the Socialist Party’s showing, opposition leaders said.

Oleksandr Turchynov, the No. 2 man in the Tymoshenko bloc, accused the Regions Party of manipulations to inflate the showing of its ally. He also threatened to appeal election results in those regions in court.

“We see attempts being made to help Moroz’s Socialist Party,” Turchynov said. “The corrections being made show that work is being done in this direction.” (nr/ez)