KIEV, Jan. 11 – Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko seeks to schedule an emergency session of Parliament on Wednesday to try to amend election legislation to prevent possible fraud, but even her allies are skeptical.

Also, Tymoshenko’s lawyers on Monday appealed the recent court ruling that allows voters to cast ballots at home without producing medical records showing their disability.

The developments show political tensions rapidly escalate in Ukraine less than a week before voters are due to go to polls to elect the next president.

“Members of the Central Election Commission close to [opposition] Regions Party have in fact opened unlimited opportunities for mass falsifications during the election of the president,” the Tymoshenko group said in a statement.

Tymoshenko is opposing the legislation that her party had originally approved jointly with the Regions Party to govern the next presidential election

The legislation did not provide a clear guidance concerning the at-home ballot casting, but the issue had loomed large on January 4 when the Central Election Commission had suddenly ruled to allow voters casting ballots at home without showing the medical records.

This may effectively lead to sweeping vote rigging on a scale similar to the presidential election of November 2004 that had triggered the Orange Revolution, a popular uprising against the election fraud.

Analysts said that rampant use of home ballot casting - if manipulated - may help some candidates in their strongholds increase their popular support by about 4 percentage points.

This, however, will not be enough to bridge a 16-percentage point gap between Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, analysts said.

Meanwhile, even Tymoshenko’s allies, such as Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, whose group is a part of the Tymoshenko-led coalition, said the effort to change the legislation will probably fail.

“The conclusion is obvious: nothing will be obtained in the end,” Lytvyn said.

Lytvyn said that the Tymoshenko group and the opposition Regions Party have jointly approve the controversial legislation, and now should settle the issue between themselves.

“As a result of their collusion they wanted to use the raider way of seizing businesses towards [trying] to seize the position of the president,” Lytvyn said. “So, let them settle accounts and not get a constructive part of Parliament involved in their spat.”

“Let them argue and be happy,” Lytvyn said.

Meanwhile, Volodymyr Shapoval, the head of the Central Election Commission who had not supported the at-home ballot casting, on Monday said the candidates will have enough power to prevent the fraud.

“They have all the leverage,” Shapoval said. “Starting with the fact that election commissions are formed through active involvement of the candidates.”

“So, let them through the power of their representatives make sure that there is no place for the fraud like that,” Shapoval said.

The 14-strong Central Election Commission on January 4 voted 8 to 4 to allow Ukrainian voters casting ballots at home without producing medical records proving their illnesses.

The decision shows that Yanukovych and his allies effectively control the majority of the commission that will be authorized to declare the next president following the vote.

Tymoshenko on January 5 pledged to reverse the CEC’s decision in court, but a ruling by the Kiev Administrative Court of Appeals on January 8 dashed those hopes. (tl/ez)