The head of Yanukovych's campaign is now saying that Yushchenko will win, but that the victory margin will be small.

The final results of the Ukrainian presidential elections of December 26 will end with Viktor Yushchenko's victory, but the margin between the candidates' ratings will be small, said head of Viktor Yanukovych's headquarters Taras Chornovyl.

Chornovyl told a press conference on Monday morning that the work of many regional elections commissions in eastern Ukraine was halted due to the absence of the Our Ukraine bloc's representatives.

This, Chornovyl said, allows the Central elections commission to publish preliminary results of the voting that indicate there is a big margin between the candidates.

It's hard to see what difference it will make, though, as with 87% of the vote counted Yushchenko is up 54-42. Closing, like I thought before, but not by as much as I thought. The lead is more than 3 million votes with about 24 million counted so far. Four Yanukovych regions are still with plenty of precincts still to report (including Luhansk, Crimea, Mykolaiv and Odessa) but I will guess the spread comes in around 51-45 or 52-44 when it's all done by morning our time.

I'll hit the CEC site one more time before turning in later tonight.

UPDATE: A member of the CEC already agrees with Chornovyl.