Ukraine votes in repeat presidential showdown

Voting got under way nationwide at 8:00 am (0600 GMT) and was due to end at 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) with exit polls to be released immediately at the close. Preliminary official results were expected to start being made public around 11:00 pm.

Shortly after polls opened, the country's new central election chief, Yaroslav Davydovich, said all polling places had opened on schedule and voting was proceding normally throughout the country, with 37.4 million people registered to take part in the ballot.

"That's the figure we ended up with," Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

The election was ordered after a previous vote was marred by large-scale fraud and a dark poisoning episode that triggered mass street protests and exposed deep divisions within the former Soviet republic itself, and between the West and Russia.

It pits opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, who has pledged to lead Ukraine toward membership in the European Union and the US-led NATO alliance, against Viktor Yanukovich, the government candidate who has vowed to keep Ukraine firmly at Russia's side.

But it also has larger, geopolitical ramifications as the United States and western Europe push for accelerated development of Western-style democracy and free markets in Ukraine against a wary Russia bridling at what it regards as foreign encroachment into its strategic backyard.

Yushchenko, 50, is favoured to win the election, with several opinion surveys considered reliable giving him a lead of more than 10 points over the 54-year-old Yanukovich.

In the capital, early voters said they had returned to the polls because the future of Ukraine was at stake, but they made clear they were tired of the power struggle over the leadership of the country.