KIEV, June 27 – President Viktor Yushchenko’s party, Our Ukraine, on Saturday gave its four renegade lawmakers one week to quit the Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko-led coalition, warning that otherwise they would be expelled from the party.

The removal of the four lawmakers may lead to the collapse of the coalition and trigger an early parliamentary election later this year.

But the party fell short of urging its five ministers to quit the Cabinet. The exodus of ministers would immediately make the 25-strong government incapable of approving any decisions, making it much harder to combat the economic slump.

“We have four men that have lost their way in the woods and we must approve this decision,” Yushchenko said addressing party delegates at a meeting in Kiev shortly before they had voted urging the lawmakers to quit the coalition.

Vira Ulianchenko, the head of the party’s council, said after the vote that the lawmakers will have one week to withdraw from the coalition. “Let’s wait one week, and after that we’ll impose the sanctions,” she said.

The move comes as Yushchenko has been making strong attempts to disassociate his party from Tymoshenko’s policy that he has repeatedly deemed to be wrong and economically unjustified.

Yushchenko repeatedly criticized Tymoshenko for the depth of the economic contraction that Ukraine had experienced on the heels of the global financial crisis, but said the government’s response to the crisis has been making the situation even worse.

Our Ukraine is the biggest part of Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense group that controls 72 seats in the 450-seat Parliament. At least 37 Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense lawmakers must get together at a meeting to approve decision that would lead to the collapse of the coalition.

Yushchenko said he currently has 17 loyal lawmakers in Parliament.

People’s Self-defense is the group associated with Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko that has been closely cooperating with Tymoshenko.

Tymoshenko does not have the support of the majority in Parliament, which makes appointing ministers and approval of any anti-crisis legislation extremely difficult. But the coalition may only collapse when the majority of Our Ukraine-Self-defense, or at least 37 lawmakers, vote to quit the coalition.

The 25-strong government currently has four vacancies: the defense minister, the foreign minister, the finance minister and the transportation minister. The government becomes incapable if there are a total of nine vacant seats in the Cabinet. (dz/ez)