Ukrainian election today: exit polls vs. actual numbers

It would be interesting to see how it plays out in Ukrainian election. On October 31, in a first round of voting, economist Yushchenko (liberal and an advocate of gradual moves towards integration with Europe) beat Yanukovich, who is backed by Ukraine's outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and Russia's Vladimir Putin, by the tiniest of margins.
Today, after a second round of voting, the final result of the Ukrainian "National" exit poll puts liberal challenger Viktor Yushchenko at 54 percent, with Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich at 43 percent. Pretty impressive margin! The "National" exit poll was organized by a group of international and Ukrainian sociological centers. 30,000 people were polled.  However with about 9% of votes counted, Putin's protégé leads 53% to 41%.

Ahead of the second round of voting Western countries have expressed concern about foul play. Richard Lugar was among other international observers monitoring Sunday's voting.  By tomorrow all votes will be counted and if Prime Minister is ahead I am curious how they are going to treat/explain exit polls.  And how international community, US included, will react?!

By the way, Yushchenko (the challenger) earlier threatened to stage street protests if there was any attempt to deny him victory by fraudulent means.  Oh, and turnout was about 80%...