Supporters of Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich briefly clashed with police on Monday at a printing house producing ballot papers for the presidential election next month, government officials said.
Yanukovich’s Regions Party said his rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, had been preparing to rig the vote by changing management at the printing house in Kiev, gaining the ability to print 1.5 million extra ballot papers.
The incident added to tension before a runoff ballot on February 7 between Yanukovich and Tymoshenko for the presidency of the former Soviet republic of 46 million people.
Regions Party supporters had gone to the building at the weekend to stop a new manager, whom they suspected of being a Tymoshenko loyalist, from entering.
In his version of events, Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko said lawmakers from the Regions tried to get into the building and scuffled with police who were called in.
Lutsenko told journalists some parliamentarians "using their immunity from prosecution had tried to influence the situation, including by using force."
Television images showed a group of men trying to break down the door of the building using crowbars, and smashing windows.
The Regions Party, however, denied police were present at the scene. A statement said what Lutsenko referred to as police were in fact a group of men linked to Tymoshenko and sent to gain control of the building.
The statement said Tymoshenko had "understood the indisputable fact that she could not win the presidential election honestly, and had taken a path for destabilization of the situation, for falsifying the election …."
The accusations prompted incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko — out of the running for the election — to rebuke both sides and call for the building to be placed under armed guard.
Lutsenko said 22 people who had no immunity from arrest had been detained.
Yanukovich won 35 percent of the vote and Tymoshenko 25 percent in the first round on January 17.
