KIEV, Feb. 1 ??“ The controversial law on the Cabinet of Ministers reducing powers of President Viktor Yushchenko will be published on Friday and will probably escalate tensions between the president and the government.

Ukraine??™s two official newspapers, Holos Ukrayiny and Uriadoviy Kurrier, went to presses late Thursday carrying the law, which means that it may come in effect on Friday.

Yushchenko rejected the law as illegal and pledged to appeal to the Constitutional Court in order to cancel it.

???We hope the Constitutional Court will decide on the matter within one or two months, not years,??? a spokesman at the Yushchenko??™s office, said Thursday.

The law may give the coalition the power to appoint foreign and defense ministers, the two figures that according to the constitution are supposed to be nominated by the president.

The pro-Russian coalition may use this power to change Ukraine??™s foreign policy away from pro-Western course towards a closer economic and political cooperation with Russia, analysts said.

Oleksandr Lavrynovych, the justice minister, said now it is the coalition that defines all ministers in the Cabinet, including foreign and defense ministers, while the president ???only submits nomination??? of these two figures.

???The government coalition suggests all ministers in the government without exception,??? Lavrynovych said in an interview with Inter late Thursday. ???The president only nominates the two ministers. But if the president fails to do so, the coalition will nominate them.???

The coalition already forced pro-Western Foreign Minister Boris Tarasiuk, an ally of Yushchenko, to quit on Tuesday, following two months of pressure from Yanukovych. The Finance Ministry suspended funding to the Foreign Ministry to force Tarasiuk to quit.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko, the last remaining pro-Western ally of Yushchenko in the government, is also facing an increased pressure from the pro-Russian coalition.

Hrytsenko said Thursday the government has been financing only a half of the army??™s originally planned expenditures, which makes the ministry??™s operation difficult.

???Psychologically it??™s very difficult,??? Hrytsenko told Kommersant daily. (tl/ez)