She was responding to election law changes, orchestrated Wednesday by Yanukovych's parliamentary supporters, which could increase the likelihood of the 2004-style fraud that precipitated the massive demonstrations that year, according to analysts.

"I ask you not to allow Yanukovych to rape our democracy, our election and our country!" Tymoshenko, who finished 10 percentage points behind her bitter rival in the first round of voting last month, said here Thursday in a call for mass support.

"If we do not manage . . . to ensure that the expression of the people's will and the results of this will are held in an honest way we will call people out," Tymoshenko told a news conference.

"If Yanukovych wants an honest fight, we are ready to compete with him, but if he seeks to cheat, we will be able to rebuff him in a way he has never seen, even in 2004."

Yanukovych, whose 2004 presidential victory was overturned following evidence of widespread vote-rigging, ridiculed her gambit.

"This is a sign of weakness and a sign that she has understood she is losing," he said Thursday in predominantly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, one of his power bases.

"The only people who will go to Independence Square (the site of the Orange Revolution protests) are those who like the same dishes as Tymoshenko — dirt, lies and slander."

The possibility of a postelection street fight, and possible court battle, increases uncertainty in a country of 46 million that is seeking the resumption of funding from a suspended $16.4-billion U.S. International Monetary Fund loan.

The legislative changes, pushed through by members of Yanukovych's Regions Party, change the rules governing polling stations. Analysts said the changes increase the risk of partisan influence of the vote process.

The new rules were quickly signed into law by President Viktor Yushchenko, Tymoshenko's 2004 Orange Revolution partner who became her archrival.

"The changes do not make fraud inevitable, but they weaken the insurance mechanisms that are designed to stop it," Andrew Wilson, an analyst with the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in his blog.

"Yanukovych's supporters, meanwhile, have reminded the world that they have never come to terms with, or even admitted, what they did in 2004."

But Wilson and University of Alberta historian David Marples both said the legal changes are also being exploited by Tymoshenko, a firebrand populist.

Tymoshenko is sounding increasingly "desperate" and appears to be implying she won't accept defeat, said Marples, director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, in an e-mail.

"But the fact remains that few, if any discrepancies of voting procedure were observed in the first round. I am not suggesting that a Yanukovych presidency would be good for Ukraine, or that he is (a) pleasant or particularly honest man.

"Yet, if he won the first round by more than 10 per cent without cheating, then why would he cheat on the second, especially with the entire world watching?"

The University of Victoria's Serhy Yekelchyk said Tymoshenko knows she's about to lose and will "try everything" to stay in power.

"It is not going to work this time, though. No repeat of 2004."

"The people are disillusioned with the Orange revolutionaries, who did not fulfil their hefty promises of 2004. Instead, they became mired in the same dirty politics and backroom deals so repulsive to ordinary Ukrainians."

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