Ukraine's Tymoshenko says she'll run again for president

KIEV - Reuters

A file picture taken on February 2, 2011 shows Ukraine's former prime minister and leader of the opposition Yulia Tymoshenko posing in her residence in Kiev. AFP Photo

Ukrainian former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, released from jail last month after her arch-foe Viktor Yanukovich fled from power, announced on Thursday she would run again for president in an election on May 25.
   
"I plan to run for election as president," she told reporters.
  
Tymoshenko, 53, a powerful speaker known in her heyday for a trademark peasant hair-braid, served twice as prime minister and ran for president in 2010, only to be narrowly beaten in a run-off vote by Yanukovich.
   
Yanukovich subsequently launched a campaign against Tymoshenko and her allies and she was jailed in 2011 for abuse of office linked to a gas deal she brokered with Russia in 2009.
   
She served two years of a seven-year term, mainly under prison guard in a hospital in Kharkiv, before being released when Yanukovich fled on February 20 and was subsequently ousted by parliament.