KIEV, Nov. 6 – Parliament’s first session after the snap election may be delayed after lawmakers from the Regions and Communist parties on Tuesday ignored a special meeting of a working group.

The meeting was supposed to elect an interim chairman in a move that would pave the way for the Parliament’s first session, which is needed to elect the speaker and to register the coalition.

Yulia Tymoshenko, the opposition leader whose party jointly with President Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense pledged to form the coalition, accused Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych’s Regions Party of “sabotage.”

“We all see now who’s destabilizing the work of Parliament, sabotaging the [2008] budget drafting work and winter preparation,” Tymoshenko said. “It’s the Regions Party.”

Tymoshenko’s group and Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense, the two pro-Western groups that will jointly control 228 seats in the 450-seat Parliament, seek to create a coalition and to form the next government.

The meeting was due on Tuesday, 10 days after official election results had been published by newspapers following court rejection of complaints from the Communist party, which had been contesting the vote.

The Regions Party, which will control 175 seats, said its lawmakers failed to show up at the meeting because they have yet to get registered by the Central Election Commission.

But Tymoshenko countered those arguments by citing a law which stipulates the meeting was supposed to be held within the first 10 days after the election results had been announced.

“In fact, the Regions Party today violated the law,” Tymoshenko said, adding that the next meeting is scheduled on Wednesday. “We call on Regions and Communist lawmakers to show up tomorrow at 15:00.”

At least 16 lawmakers were supposed to join the meeting on Tuesday, but only 15 had showed up, including 10 lawmakers from the Tymoshenko group, four from Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense and one from the group led by former parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn.

Tymoshenko and Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense have been courting Lytvyn to join the coalition in order to expand it to a comfortable majority of 248 seats.

But Ihor Sharov, a lawmaker from the Lytvyn group, left the meeting shortly after it had started, casting increasing doubt on whether the group will eventually join the coalition.

Tymoshenko said that further sabotage from the Regions and the Communists would not prevent the session of Parliament.

“We will conduct the first session of Parliament under any circumstances because we have 228 lawmakers within the democratic coalition,” she said. (tl/ez)