Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has a comfortable lead of nearly 12 percentage points over Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych in the country's rerun presidential election, with 90.03 percent of the votes counted, preliminary results provided by the Central Election Commission showed Monday.

Yushchenko won 54.08 percent of the votes, against 42.13 percent for Yanukovych.

The turnout for Sunday's election stands at 77.34 percent.

Earlier Monday, Yushchenko claimed victory in the election, saying the nation was beginning a new political life.

On the other side, Yanukovych refused to accept failure and vowed to lead a tough opposition if he fails in the re-run.

The revote began Sunday with 32,118 polling stations opening at8:00 am (0600 GMT) for voters to cast their ballots.

It was the third time in eight weeks that the two rival candidates faced off in a fiercely waged presidential contest.

Yanukovych defeated Yushchenko by a narrow margin in the Nov. 21 run-off. But Yushchenko's supporters staged widespread demonstrations, protesting what they called election fraud.

The results of the Nov. 21 presidential run-off were annulled by the Supreme Court, leading to Sunday's revoting.