Kiev, Ukraine ? Thousands of demonstrators who’d blockaded government buildings here to protest alleged electoral fraud celebrated in the streets Wednesday after parliament approved changes intended to ensure a free and fair presidential runoff vote Dec. 26.

Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko told his supporters to prepare for the election, which will pit him against Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych again. “During these 17 days we have built a new country,” Yushchenko told thousands of demonstrators camped out in Independence Square. “We have realized that we are a European nation.”

Yanukovych, who’d been declared the victor of the flawed Nov. 21 runoff, told supporters in southeastern Ukraine that parliament’s move was a “silent coup.” “Clearly, lawlessness continues in the capital,” he said. “These laws were dictated by the mobs in the streets.”

Parliament’s actions were aimed at two practices that election observers said contributed perhaps as many as 3 million fraudulent votes in the runoff: absentee voting and voting from home.

International observers filmed Yanukovych supporters in the southeast section of the country voting multiple times, and as many as a third of the votes for Yanukovych were cast from home.

The new laws limit home-voting to people who are homebound, and greatly restrict the number of absentee votes.

The revisions came only after Yushchenko’s supporters in parliament agreed to a change in Ukraine’s Constitution that transfers some presidential powers to parliament. Yushchenko had denounced the change, but apparently agreed to a compromise that would put it off until after parliamentary elections in 2006, when his backers hope to win a majority.

Ukrainians celebrate the parliamentary vote on electoral reforms during a rally at Independence Square in downtown Kiev. Ukraine's parliament adopted electoral and constitutional changes Wednesday in a compromise intended to defuse the nation's political crisis.