KIEV, Nov. 3 - Opposition leaders on Wednesday pledged to contest results of controversial Kharkiv mayoral election in court following allegations of massive vote rigging in favor of an incumbent.

The pledge comes as the Kharkiv city election commission resumed vote counting following long delays, bizarre equipment failures and a declaration by the regional governor that the incumbent, Henadiy Kernes, had won.

This comes despite two exit polls on Sunday predicted that the opposition candidate, Arsen Avakov, had defeating Kernes by 4 percentage points.

“There are all legitimate opportunities to solve this issue at the Central Election Commission, at courts and with the help of political negotiations,” Volodymyr Filenko, a lawmaker from the opposition Batkivshcyna party, told Channel 5. “Both, our political opponents and the president, who promised fair election, have to do everything they can to eliminate doubts that their candidate had won in an honest way.”

The pledge to contest the election legally in courts suggests the opposition group will not be calling on its supporters to take to streets for massive protests.

Mykhaylo Dobkin, the governor of the Kharkiv region, said Tuesday the authorities have been taking measures to prevent the protests among students in the region.