By Richard Balmforth
KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine began voting for a president on Sunday in an election marked by widespread disillusionment as am economic crisis grips, but one which is crucial to its relations with Russia and place in Europe.
It is the first presidential election in the former Soviet republic of 46 million people since the so-called "Orange Revolution" mass street protests in 2004 broke the grip on power of a sleazy post-Soviet leadership.
In a historical irony, the frontrunner in Sunday's vote is opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich, once seen as a pro-Moscow stooge, whose rigged election in 2004 sparked those protests.
Opinion polls up to the start of the year, when their publication ceased under local law, consistently put the 59-year-old Yanukovich, a towering, barrel-chested man backed by Ukraine's wealthiest industrialists, out in front.
Behind him, the polls showed, was Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a style-conscious, sharp-tongued populist who has been accusing him of preparing election fraud.
Neither is expected to win an outright victory on Sunday and a second round of voting is expected on February 7. Yushchenko was unlikely to win re-election, the polls showed.
Tymoshenko, 49, portrayed herself on Friday as the only real possible saviour for Ukraine which, she said, was teetering on a "razor-sharp edge of choice" and could tip into the abyss.
Analysts say it is crucial for Ukraine, which heavily depends on Russia for most of its energy needs, to navigate a prudent course in relations with its old Soviet master after bad blood between the two countries during the Yushchenko years.
The election victor will also have to revive a shattered economy and take control of collapsing state finances that have been propped up by a $16.4 billion (10.1 billion pound) International Monetary Fund bail-out programme.
Both Yanukovich and Tymoshenko have sought to balance their comments on Russia with the need to integrate the country into the European mainstream, though Tymoshenko has gone furthest.
Tymoshenko has said she wanted to take Ukraine into the European Union within five years, an ambitious goal given the level of EU frustration at the political turmoil in the country.
BITTER EXCHANGES
She openly sought to ridicule Yanukovich, who comes from a hard east Ukraine mining background, for his poor education.
Yanukovich, who the media says has benefited from a public relations make-over since 2004, hit back.
In the five years he had known her, "she has not once told the truth either to me or the country as a whole," he said.
But he said that pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko had led the country into an impasse by ineffectual leadership.
Yushchenko, the victor from the "Orange Revolution," has angered Moscow with his anti-Soviet interpretation of history.
He says both Yanukovich and Tymoshenko are part of a pro-Kremlin tandem that represents a real threat to Ukraine, but opinion polls suggest he has little real chance of re-election.
Voting ends at 1800 GMT (6 p.m. British time) and first exit polls are expected very soon after that.
Surprises cannot be ruled out. A Russian opinion poll has said former central bank chief Sergey Tigipko has been creeping up on Tymoshenko and may have overtaken her.
Some fear in this case Tymoshenko might react sharply and challenge the result, either through the courts or even by trying to bring people out into the streets as she did in 2004.
A small army of international election monitors has arrived in Ukraine and are now in place across the snow-covered country.
Analysts say Yanukovich, whose main support comes from the densely-populated, Russian-speaking areas of the industrial east and the south, will feel confident of victory only if he has well over 10 percent more than his next rival in Sunday's vote.
Tymoshenko, a powerful performer on television and in public who will get a strong vote in rural votes in the west and the centre of the country, could catch him up if he becomes too complacent in the run-up to a second round, they say.
The level of popular disenchantment with the political elite remains high. With the euphoria of the Orange Revolution long evaporated, there could be some voter apathy.
"In these elections, there have been few vacant places for faith, hope, love, hatred, loyalty and passion. Their place has been firmly occupied by pity, habit, inertia, weariness, indifference and distress," Sergei Rakhmanin wrote in the weekly Zerkalo Nedely on Saturday.
(Editing by Ralph Gowling)
