KIEV, Ukraine - Exit polls in the re-run of Ukraine's presidential election Sunday said liberal challenger Viktor Yushchenko had beaten Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich by a wide margin.

Yushchenko, who called crowds of supporters into the streets to denounce cheating in the last poll, scored 56.5 percent to 41.3 percent for Yanukovich, according to a poll by the Kiev International Institute for Sociology and the Razumkov Center.

A second poll, by the Center for Social Monitoring, gave him an even wider lead -- putting his share of the vote at 58.1 percent and Yanukovich's at 38.4 percent.

Yanukovich had initially been declared the winner in last month's run-off vote, but his victory was overturned by the Supreme Court which agreed with opposition charges that the election was rigged in his favor.

The figures in the first exit poll represented 80 percent of a sample of 30,000 voters who were polled across the former Soviet republic. The second exit poll surveyed 13,000 voters.

© 2004 Reuters  Ltd

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