KIEV, Dec. 14 – Five parties in Parliament signed a compromise agreement on Friday allowing the vote to approve Yulia Tymoshenko as Ukraine’s new prime minister to proceed on Tuesday using a show of hands.

The agreement ended four days of standoff in Parliament between the coalition and the Regions Party, the biggest opposition group, following an unexplained computer malfunction that had prevented the approval of Tymoshenko in the first place.

The coalition indicated it was ready to approve Tymoshenko on Friday, but it had agreed to postpone the vote until Tuesday as a compromise in exchange for the promise from the Regions Party to stop its blockade of the legislature.

“Today’s [agreement] is the final line,” Oleksandr Turchynov, the No. 2 man in the group led by Yulia Tymoshenko, said Friday. “If the blockade continues, we will go for the forceful variant of voting.”

The Tymoshenko group and Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense, President Viktor Yushchenko’s group, control 227 seats in the 450-seat Parliament and seek to form the government that would promote Ukraine’s pro-Western course.

The new government is expected to replace the government of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, whose pro-Russian coalition involving the Regions Party and the Communist Party has been trying to slow down Ukraine’s pro-Western foreign policy.

Thw approval of Tymoshenko as the prime minister suffered a setback on Tuesday when a computer vote counting system, the Rada, failed to register two votes from lawmakers, leading to the overall failure.

The failure highlighted challenges that the slim pro-Western government will face in the event that Tymoshenko is finally approved as the prime minister.

The coalition is facing a deadline of Dec. 23 to approve the prime minister and to form the government, which is 30 days after it has been officially registered following the Sept. 30 snap election.

The agreement ending the standoff was signed by the Tymoshenko group, Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense, the Regions Party, the Communist Party and group led by former Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn.

The agreement anticipates that Parliament’s agenda on Tuesday will include approval of the prime minister, dismissal of Yanukovych as the prime minister, ending authority of the Yanukovych’s government, the appointment of the new government, lawmakers said.

Parliament will also Tuesday end lawmaker status of those lawmakers that will be approved to work in the government, and election of Parliament’s first deputy speaker and deputy speaker, followed by the appointments in Parliament’s 28 committees. (tl/ez)