KIEV, April 29 – Constitutional talks between Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and the opposition Regions Party collapsed as time ran out to implement amendments before the next presidential election, a senior lawmaker said Wednesday.

Ivan Kyrylenko, the leader of the Tymoshenko Bloc in Parliament, said it would be ideal to amend the constitution before the presidential election, but complained the time had been “wasted.”

“We ran out of time,” Kyrylenko said in an interview with Channel 5 late Wednesday. “It would be very good to have the new head of state elected according to new rules of game. But we won’t do it. The time has been wasted.”

The comments were made a day after Viktor Yanukovych, the leader of the Regions Party, said the talks with Tymoshenko had stalled over undisclosed differences. The next presidential election was scheduled by Parliament for Oct. 25.

The reports of the collapsed talks come a week after Tymoshenko and Yanukovych had reportedly made an important progress, including the agreement to elect the next president in Parliament, scrapping the nation-wide vote.

The idea of electing the president in Parliament is not popular with Ukrainian voters who seek to directly cast their ballots for electing the head of state, analysts said.

The amendment was apparently aimed against Arseniy Yatseniuk, a popular former parliamentary speaker, whose popularity has been growing sharply posting the threat to both, Tymoshenko and Yanukovych.

Yatseniuk, reacting to the reports of the secret Tymoshenko-Yanukovych talks, on Friday called them a “collusion” to split power between the two.

Kyrylenko admitted the voters could be “surprised” with the things that have been put in the constitutional amendments under discussion between Tymoshenko and Yanukovych.

He also suggested the attempt to amend the constitution could be in fact used by other presidential candidates, notably Yatseniuk, to promote their campaigns.

“The main players have already launched their campaigns,” Kyrylenko said. “Helping somebody, who can later put this on his banner? No, no way.”

Kommersant daily reported last week that Tymoshenko and Yanukovych had a secret meeting on April 18.

Segodnia, a daily newspaper owned by Rinat Akhmetov, the key financial sponsor of the Regions Party, later reported that Tymoshenko and Yanukovych had made an important progress in the talks, including agreement on election of the next president in Parliament as opposed to the nation-wide vote.

Another newspaper, Ukrayina Moloda, later reported that Tymoshenko had agreed to let Regions Party nominate all key finance and economic positions in the government, but had refused to surrender the post of the prime minister.

But Yanukovych on Tuesday said that the talks had stumbled over undisclosed differences, adding that the coalition with Tymoshenko was highly unlikely. (tl/ez)