Ukraine"s outgoing president, Viktor Yushchenko...

"I fulfilled my democratic duties as president but national and state obligations give me no moral right to leave Ukrainian political life," said Yushchenko, who was elected president in December 2004 but received only 5.45% of the vote this time around.

Yushchenko said the elections were free, democratic and legitimate, but warned that Ukrainians had no real choice in the February 7 runoff between the two leading candidates, neither of whom secured an outright victory.

Opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, defeated by Yushchenko in the 2004 vote, garnered 35.3% of the vote on Sunday, and will face the president"s ally-turned-rival Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who received 25%,

"For both candidates ... national, European, democratic values are in essence alien, incomprehensible and very distant," Yushchenko told reporters, adding he saw no significant difference between the candidates.

Yushchenko led the 2004 pro-Western "orange revolution" along with

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