KIEV

An independent exit poll indicated Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's party was leading in yesterday's parliamentary elections by a slim margin ahead of Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc.

The poll showed Yanukovych's bloc with 35.5% of the vote, and Tymoshenko's with 31.5%. President Viktor Yushchenko's party was trailing a distant third with 13.4%, according to the poll, which was conducted by Ukraine's three leading polling agencies and had a margin of error of two percentage points.

Communists, who said they would form a coalition with Yanukovych's party, got 5.1% of the vote, according to the exit poll, and the party led by former parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn got 3.7%.

The study was funded by the US embassy in Ukraine, the Danish Foreign Ministry and the Dutch embassy in Ukraine.-AP