By Natalya Zinets and Richard Balmforth
KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovich was sworn in as president on Thursday and immediately pledged to fight corruption and poverty, and restore political stability to win back foreign support for the struggling economy.
Yanukovich took the oath of office in a low-key ceremony which reflected a bitterly-contested election -- still disputed by his rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko -- and which highlighted deep divisions in the country.
All the same, his inauguration marked a comeback from humiliation in 2004 when mass protests, called the Orange Revolution, overturned an election that had been rigged in his favour.
Speaking to a gathering of officials, lawmakers and foreign dignitaries after accepting the traditional trappings of office, the 59-year-old Yanukovich said the country faced "colossal debts," poverty, corruption and economic collapse.
"Ukraine needs a strategy of innovative movement forward and such a strategy has been worked out by our team," he said.
Turning to the paucity of foreign investment in the ex-Soviet republic of 46 million, and its notoriously unpredictable business climate, he said he sought to restore political stability, end corruption and set out rules governing links between the state and business.
These were all "necessary conditions for investors and international financial institutions to establish trust in Ukraine," he said.
Ukraine's economy has been hit hard by the global downturn which hurt its vital exports of steel and chemicals and halved the hryvnia's value to the dollar over the past 18 months.
The country is dependent on a $16.4 billion (10.7 billion pound) International Monetary Fund bail-out programme, but lending was suspended late last year and is only likely to resume when stability returns.
The finance ministry said on Thursday that an IMF technical mission would visit on April 7. This usually leads to full-blown visit from IMF officials who may later decide whether to restart the programme.
TIES WITH RUSSIA
A burly former mechanic backed by wealthy industrialists, Yanukovich had a deprived childhood in eastern Ukraine and as a young man was convicted twice for petty crime including assault.
He is expected to improve ties with Russia, Ukraine's former Soviet master, after five years of estrangement under the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko.
He has hinted at possible concessions to Moscow over the future of Russia's Black Sea fleet forces in Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and has proposed the creation of a consortium including Russia to run the country's gas pipelines.
However, he says he wants to change a 10-year-old agreement on supplies of Russian gas to Ukraine which was negotiated by Tymoshenko and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
He also says he will pursue a balanced foreign policy and has vowed to push for closer ties with the European Union.
In his speech on Thursday, he kept all his options open, saying his foreign policy would be one of "equal and mutually-advantageous ties" with Russia, the EU and the United States which would reap "maximum results" for Ukraine.
His web site later quoted him as confirming he would go to Brussels next week, a visit which EU officials say will take place on Monday. He is also intending to visit Moscow in the first 10 days of March, his Regions Party said.
Yanukovich beat Prime Minister Tymoshenko by 3.5 percentage points but won the support of only a third of the 37 million-strong electorate.
The voting pattern highlighted a sharp split between Russian-speaking voters in the industrial east and south who backed him, and Ukrainian-speakers in the west and centre who voted for Tymoshenko.
Tymoshenko dropped her legal challenge to Yanukovich's election only last Saturday. But she maintains he was not legitimately-elected and she and most of her bloc in parliament stayed away on Thursday, giving the ceremony a hollow ring.
Despite Yanukovich's call for the establishment of a "competent executive power," Tymoshenko is still resisting attempts to oust her as prime minister, signalling continued political tension at least in the short-term.
She is trying to persuade her allies to close ranks round her in parliament, while his party and its powerful backers are seeking to draw deputies away from her coalition and forge a new one.
Forging a coalition requires some tricky horse-trading and could be a lengthy process. If Yanukovich fails to secure a new coalition, he will reluctantly have to call new parliamentary elections, further prolonging uncertainty.
(Additional reporting by Sabina Zawadzki, Yuri Kulikov and Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Jon Boyle)