By Ron Popeski
KIEV (Reuters) - Liberal candidate Viktor Yushchenko expressed unease on Wednesday at the effects of dioxin poisoning on his pocked face, but said he was fit to be president and predicted voters would hand him a landslide victory.
Yushchenko, who takes on Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich in a Dec. 26 re-run of last month's rigged presidential poll, says authorities poisoned him in a murder attempt. Austrian doctors last week detected dioxin in him 1,000 times the normal level.
The liberal challenger drew vast crowds into the street to back his charges of mass fraud in the Nov. 21 run-off in which Yanukovich was declared the winner. The Supreme Court annulled the result and ordered a new vote between the two men.
The West-leaning Yushchenko denies suggestions by his rival that he is too ill to take office, but showed he was affected by the poisoning, which has left his face bloated and discolored.
"I have apologized dozens of times for my face. Please believe me that more than anyone else I would like it to be the way it was three months ago. Time is needed for that," he told a news conference.
"In political terms, let me say that I am in good shape and able to work. In moral and ethical terms, I regret that I look like this at the moment. But over time everything will be OK."
Austrian doctors say Yushchenko is in good physical condition. Prosecutors have reopened a criminal case into the incident, launched when Yushchenko first fell ill in September but subsequently closed.
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