KIEV, Nov. 6 – Ukraine’s three opposition groups on Tuesday expanded the number of majority districts they said had been affected by alleged vote manipulation and urged the Central Election Commission to get “calculators” and recount the ballots.

The parties, Batkivschyna, Udar and Svoboda, vowed to challenge in court the CEC’s recent resolution that calls for holding new elections in five contested majority districts.

At some of these districts opposition candidates have led pro-government candidates by comfortable margins only to see their victories stolen after the alleged manipulation during ballot counting.

“We are not afraid of the new elections. We will come and win,” Arseniy Yatseniuk, the leader OF Batkivshchyna, said. “But in those districts where our candiates won by a margin of up to 12,000 votes, where we had victories, we will challenge the CEC resolution.”

“We demand that the CEC conduct a recount of ballots to declare our victory,” Yatseniuk said.

On the other hand, the opposition parties expanded the number of majority districts affected by the alleged fraud to 13 from 5, and urged the CEC to take action to protect the ballots from manipulations.

“We demand them to get the calculators and to re-count the results and to establish victors from opposition in 13 districts,” Yatseniuk said.

This come less than a day after Yatseniuk, and other opposition leaders on Monday have accepted the CEC’s plan to hold the new elections in five majority districts No. 94, No. 132, No. 194, No. 197 and No. 223.

The plan, however, was later harshly criticized by other opposition figures and particularly by grass-root activists who had protected ballots from tampering at a number of contested districts for nine days.

“I am so tempted to punch somebody in the face for that ‘victorious’ acceptance of the new elections in the five districts,” Anatoliy Hrystenko, a former Defense Minister and one of the senior figures in the Batkivshchyna group, wrote on his Facebook page. “They betrayed the guys who openly went against the bulldozer – and won. Thousands of the people were betrayed.”

The change of position and expansion of demands by the three opposition parties suggests there is more turmoil ahead with potentially more street protests and rising pressure on President Viktor Yanukovych.

“We demand Yanukovych to be the guarantor of the constitution, not of the falsifications,” Oleh Tiahnybok, the leader of the nationalist Svoboda party, said. “Let him start criminal investigations in response to all facts of the fraud.”

The developments come after Parliament, led by Yanukovych’s Regions Party, voted to approve resolution that instructs the CEC to go ahead with the plan to hold the new elections in the five districts.

Parliament also rejected a draft resolution submitted by the opposition groups that insists on criminal prosecution against those involved in the fraud. The draft also listed names of the local officials who had allegedly participated in the manipulations.

Meanwhile, to keep pressure high on the authorities, the opposition groups have asked their supporters to continue their protest rally in front of the CEC for at least another six days.

“Dear brothers and sisters! Dear Ukrainians! We have to stand for the truth and justice through November 12,” Tiahnybok told hundreds of opposition supporters at the rally in front of the CEC. “Our major efforts will be aimed at the CEC.”

“The nation is boiling across Ukraine,” Tiahnybok said. “We hear resentments from east and from south where people are angry and do not want to see how the government spits on them and ignores their voice.” (tl/ez)