Ukraine's pro Moscow opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych talks to the media at a polling station in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, March 26, 2006. (Xinhua/AFP)

KIEV, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Three exit polls have shown that Viktor Yanukovych's opposition party, was leading the race in Ukraine's parliamentary election on Sunday, by nearly one third of the vote.

    One poll, conducted by the Ukrainian Sociological Service, gave Yanukovych's Party of the Regions, 27.5 percent, with former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc in second place with 21.6 percent, and Our Ukraine, headed by President Viktor Yushchenko at 15.6 percent.

    Another exit poll, conducted by the Democratic Initiatives International Institute of Sociology and Razumkov Center, showed Yanukovych's party at the top with more than 31 percent.

    It was followed by Tymoshenko's bloc with about 24 percent, and Our Ukraine with less than 16 percent, the survey showed.

    The third poll, which was carried out by the R&B company and the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion, showed Yanukovych's party winning 31 percent, Tymoshenko's 23 percent and Yushchenko's 14 percent.

    Yanukovych on Sunday declared his party the winner of Ukraine's parliamentary election.

    "Our victory will open a new page in the history of Ukraine. We are ready to work together with any political party, " Yanukovych said.

    However, an actual count of a very small proportion of votes, showed Tymoshenko's party to be leading the election, the Central Election Commission said Monday.

    The commission said that Tymoshenko's bloc was leading the vote with 29.9 percent, followed by Our Ukraine with 20.8 percent and Yanukovych's party with 16.8 percent. But the count represented only 1.14 percent of the ballots.

    With an apparently strong showing in the election, Tymoshenko said on Sunday that an agreement was all but complete to form a governing coalition of liberals.

    Tymoshenko implied that she would be back as prime minister as head of the largest group making up a coalition of parties, local media reported.

    The election, for the first time, enables the party or party coalition holding a parliamentary majority to appoint a prime minister, a right that had been held by the president.

    The new procedure had been set under an amendment to Ukraine's constitution adopted in December 2004, with the president retaining the right to set foreign policy and appoint foreign and defense ministers. Enditem