KIEV: Amid vows by Ukraine's new President Viktor Yushchenko to clean house after years of corruption, members of yesterday's elite in Kiev are scrambling to distance themselves from the outgoing regime.

"We intend to work with and help the new authorities," said Mykola Gapochka, a deputy from one of the parties that supported the departing regime and have been hemorrhaging members since Yushchenko's win in a rerun presidential election.

On Wednesday, Ukraine's science and education minister Vasyl Kremen became the latest to jump ship, announcing that he was withdrawing from the party of Viktor Medvedchuk, the powerful chief of outgoing leader Leonid Kuchma's administration.

"Everyone should support the actions of the president and the government," Kremen said in a statement announcing he was withdrawing from Medvedchuk's Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (SDPU).

Under the previous regime of Leonid Kuchma, Medvedchuk was one of the most powerful people in Ukraine after the president, suspected by Yushchenko's team of widescale corruption and shady deals.

With Yushchenko having come to power after two years of actively opposing Kuchma's regime, many in Ukraine expected the new authorities to conduct reprisals against the old elite like Medvedchuk.

Such expectations soared on Monday, when Yushchenko named fiery Yulia Timoshenko as his choice for the post of prime minister. Timoshenko is a firebrand politician and a sworn enemy of Kuchma and Medvedchuk, accusing both men of ruthlessly persecuting her and her family.

During a press conference in Strasbourg on Tuesday, Yushchenko vowed to "act in accordance with the law whether we are dealing with Kuchma" or anyone else. On Wednesday Medvedchuk struck back, saying that he had no intention of leaving the country and would regard any attempt to prosecute him as "political repression."

"I have always been and remain a law-abiding citizen," he told a press conference. At the same time Medvedchuk, who had served as Kuchma's administration chief from June 2002 until last week and is considered as one of Ukraine's richest men, denied on Wednesday that he is a billionaire.

"Unfortunately I do not have such a fortune," said Medvedchuk, whose fortune Poland's Wprost magazine has estimated at 800 million dollars two years ago. Among the moves mentioned by Kiev's new leader was another look at the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze, in whose death Kuchma was implicated. The former president has always denied any responsibility. -AFP