45.47% of the votes in the second and final round of the election, 3% less than her rival). In 2009, the relations between Tymoshenko and President Yushchenko, the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine and the oppositional Party of Regions remained hostile. One of the reasons for the conflict was that in 2006, Victor Yushchenko has restarted to supply gas to RosUkrEnergo company. This company then was owned by Dmitry Firtash – 45%, by Yushchenko family – 27%, and the Russian "Gazprom". In 2007, Tymoshenko argued for a direct contract for gas supplies from Russia to Ukraine. In 2008, the two prime ministers signed a Memorandum on the elimination of gas intermediaries. She emphasized early in February 2009 that the "election struggle for the next presidential elections has virtually begun." "This is a competition during economic crisis; [some people] prefer to collect political benefits from these problems instead of solving them together", Tymoshenko said in an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in February 2009. Later, in an interview with the French paper Le Monde, the prime minister said that "the president treats her as a rival striving for president's office." She also added that the previously mentioned political instability fuels economic crisis. Tymoshenko then called for an early presidential election. Having long being considered a possible candidate for President of Ukraine in the 2010 election, Tymoshenko announced that she would indeed compete in the upcoming presidential election in a statement broadcast live on national TV on 7 June 2009. Tymoshenko also stated that if she lost the presidential election she would not challenge the results. On 12 September 2009, a tour in support of Tymoshenko's candidacy, called "With Ukraine in Heart", began on Kyiv's Maidan Nezalezhnosti. Popular Ukrainian singers and bands took part in the tour. On 24 October 2009, the delegates of all-Ukrainian union "Batkivshchyna" formally and unanimously endorsed Yulia Tymoshenko as their candidate for the next Presidential election. The 200 thousand congress took place on Kyiv's Independence Square. On 31 October 2009, the Central Election Commission registered Tymoshenko as a candidate for presidential election in 2010. The Tymoshenko candidacy was also endorsed by prominent Ukrainian politicians such as Borys Tarasyuk, Yuriy Lutsenko, former President Leonid Kravchuk, the Christian Democratic Union, the European Party of Ukraine and others. Putin stated that he was cooperating with Tymoshenko as Prime Minister of Ukraine, but that he was not supporting