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Ukraine's defeated presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko will challenge the results of the bitterly contested election, aides said on Tuesday, intensifying fears the country is heading for political turmoil.

Breaking a day of silence after her defeat to Viktor Yanukovych in Sunday's vote, aides said the prime minister's party would be contesting results in some areas and could then even challenge the overall outcome.

Tymoshenko, 49, famed for her golden hair braid, stylish image and political tenacity, has disappeared from public view since the election results were published and has made no comment since a short address after exit polls. Related article: US praises Ukraine vote

Pressure has grown on Tymoshenko to concede defeat after international observers and the West praised the election as an impressive display of democracy in the ex-Soviet state.

The pro-Russia Yanukovych, 59, won by a narrow margin of just over 3.5 percent after voters repudiated the pro-Western leaders of the Orange Revolution five years ago in which Tymoshenko had been a leading protagonist.

Tymoshenko's team had twice cancelled press conferences Monday and promised she would speak on Tuesday.

But there was still no sign of her breaking cover and the Interfax-Ukraine news agency said she may issue a statement instead.

The deputy head of her Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) party, Olena Shustik, said a decision to contest some results had been taken at a meeting of the faction late Monday.

She said they would first demand a recount of the vote in some areas and then take the issue to the courts. Profile Yulia Tymoshenko

"If the result in the courts is positive, we will question the overall result," she said, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

"We will do everything to prove that this election was falsified," added BYuT lawmaker Sergiy Sobolev.

Another BYuT lawmaker, Andriy Shkil, said the party would only acknowledge Yanukovych as the winner "if we fail to prove in courts the violations that caused the victory of Yanukovych."

He said the complaints would be looking in particular at the votes of one million people who had cast their ballots at home.

Independent Internet newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda said Tymoshenko had announced at the closed party meeting that she would never acknowledge Yanukovych's victory.

"I will never acknowledge the legitimacy of the victory of Yanukovych with such elections," she said according to the site's unnamed source.

Yanukovych's Regions Party has also bussed in hundreds of supporters from its eastern strongholds to rally outside the central election commission, in an apparent bid to ensure the results stand. Profile: Viktor Yanukovych

If Tymoshenko does not concede "she risks turning herself from the heroine of the Orange Revolution into its executioner," Yanukovych told CNN in a comment published on the Regions Party website.

The US embassy in Kiev issued a statement praising the elections as a consolidation of democracy in the country but made no mention of Yanukovych.

Russia however was more effusive with the Kremlin saying President Dmitry Medvedev had personally congratulated Yanukovych on his "success" in a phone call.

The Kremlin move was symbolically important as it was then-president Vladimir Putin's pre-emptory congratulations of Yanukovych in the 2004 presidential election that helped spark Ukraine's Orange Revolution.

That election result was annulled by Ukraine's supreme court on evidence of massive electoral fraud, paving the way for the election in January 2005 of staunchly pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko.

The latest election result marked a stunning turnaround for Yanukovych.

Official results from 99.98 percent of polling stations showed Yanukovych won 48.96 percent of the vote, compared to Tymoshenko's 45.47 percent.

Another 4.4 percent of ballots were cast "against all" in a sign of the disillusionment five years after the Orange Revolution. Some 1.2 percent of ballots were spoiled.

AFP