KIEV, Nov. 7 ??“ President Viktor Yushchenko on Tuesday ruled out the option of canceling the controversial amendments to the constitution that shifted much of his power to the prime minister earlier this year.

However Yushchenko argued for approval of new changes to the constitution that would balance out the powers of the president and the prime minister.

The comment comes amid clashes over foreign and domestic policy supremacy between the president and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and was made in response to suggestions by Petro Poroshenko, the de-facto leader of the president??™s Our Ukraine party, suggesting Yushchenko should cancel the amendments to re-gain his control over the Cabinet.

The comments come as an opinion poll has suggested that Yanukovych has been steadily leading among the most popular politicians in Ukraine.

The poll found that if presidential elections were held now, Yanukovych would get 36.7% of the vote, with opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko winning 21.9%, according to Sofia Center for Social Research. Some 14.6% of respondents said they would vote for Yushchenko. The next presidential election is slated for late 2009.

Ukrainians are giving Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych credit for improving ties with Russia but feel little has been done to fight corruption or stop the growth of inflation.

The poll of 2,024 Ukrainians conducted late last month found that the majority of Ukrainians were adopting a wait-and-see attitude, though 69.8% thought Yanukovych's government was doing at least as well as the previous government.

"We see that people are not rushing to judge," Oleksandr Levtsun of the Sofia Center for Social Research, which conducted the poll, said, according to The Associated Press. "The government still has a reserve of trust from the population."

Asked what Yanukovych's government had accomplished, 61.1% noted progress in building good neighborly relations with Russia. Some 74.7% cited little progress in fighting inflation and rising prices, and 63.1% complained of little movement in the fight against corruption. The margin of error was 2.2%.

The developments come amid a tug-of-war between the president and the prime minister over greater constitutional powers that have been accelerating since early August.

The constitutional amendments were approved in December 2004 in the middle of the popular uprising known as the Orange Revolution as a compromise to allow free presidential election that had allowed the victory of Yushchenko.
The amendments were pushed hard by then outgoing President Leonid Kuchma as a means of curbing the powers of Yushchenko following his election to the presidency.

The comments come as Yanukovych has been leading among the most popular politicians in recent opinion polls, suggesting that Yanukovych could win the post of the president. (tl/ez)