Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who has refused to concede defeat in a presidential rerun vote, said Friday he has decided to quit the post.

"I have made the decision to submit my formal resignation," Yanukovych told a televised new year Eve address.

To remain on the post of prime minister "has no more sense," he noted.

In the mean time, he vowed to stay in the politics.

"I will act as an independent politician, as the rightful winner of the legitimate Nov. 21 election," he said, adding that he and his team would work "only by legal means".

He said that he would not take any post in the current authorities.

"I believe it is impossible to have any position in a state that is ruled by such officials," Yanukovych said. "This is my personal position."

Yanukovych won a disputed Nov. 21 presidential run-off triggering a weeks-long protest by Yushchenko's supporters. The Supreme Court later annulled the election result after the Yushchenko team filed an appeal demanding that the vote be declared invalid due to massive fraud.

The court also ruled a revote of Nov. 21 run-off to be held on Dec. 26.

The preliminary results of the Dec. 26 presidential election released by CEC on Tuesday gave Yushchenko a win with 51.99 percent of the vote against Yanukovych's 44.19 percent.

However, Yanukovych has said he will never concede the defeat, pledging not to quit his post of prime minister despite mounting pressure from the opposition.

On Thursday Yanukovych's last-ditch efforts to keep power were dealt twin blows after the Supreme Court rejected all of his four complaints about the inactivity of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) during voting in Sunday's presidential election re-run and after the CEC rejected his 27-volume appeal to demand the election be declared invalid.

Yanukovych's statement came as Yushchenko prepared to meet the New Year on the Independence Square in central Kiev with his supporters.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who came to Kiev Fridayfor a two-day private visit at the invitation of Yushchenko, was due to meet the New Year together with Yushchenko on the square.

(Xinhua News Agency January 1, 2005)