KIEV, Oct. 1 – President Viktor Yanukovych received massive powers on Friday thanks to a Constitutional Court ruling that cancelled 2004 amendments to Ukraine’s 1996 constitution.

Yanukovych will now be able to fire the entire Cabinet of Ministers, including the prime minister. He will also be able to appoint the entire Cabinet of Ministers, and appoint a new prime minister with Parliament approval.

The development comes days after a reshuffle at the 18-strong court replaced four judges opposing Yanukovych’s policies with those loyal to him.

“We returned to the constitution that Europe and the world recognized as one of the best,” Yanukovych said in a statement welcoming the ruling. “Ukraine and society got tired of living in conditions that had been imposed by the 2004 constitution.

The move triggered an outcry from opposition parties, which accused Yanukovych of further restricting democracy and introducing dictatorship.

“This day of October 1, 2010 will be recorded in the history of Ukraine as the day of the murder of democracy, as the day when dictatorship had been introduced,” Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of the largest opposition party, said.

“We all have been returned a long way back to the era of [former president Leonid] Kuchma with all the components of that regime,” Tymoshenko said.

The ruling was condemned by most opposition parties that had decided to get together and to agree within the next five days on how to respond to the situation.

At least 14 opposition parties, including long-time rivals like Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna, former President Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine and former Parliamentary Speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk’s Front of Changes, are working on the response strategy.

“Main positions, tactical and strategic steps will be agreed by Tuesday,” Anatoliy Hrytsenko, the leader of opposition Civil Position party, said.

The only legal way of amending constitution in Ukraine is the support of 300 lawmakers in the 450-seat Parliament. Although Yanukovych’s coalition controls about 260 seats, even some of its members have been quietly opposing the increase of the presidential powers.

The Yanukovych has been considering different ways of amending the constitution, including in Parliament and through referendum, but had apparently decided to go the most controversial way.

“Once Emperor Caligula lost his mind to a point that he had appointed his horse as a senator,” Tymoshenko said.

“Two thousands years later the same act had been repeated by Yanukovych,” she said. “Now, Ukraine obtained political nuclear weapon in the form of not exactly adequate president with the powers of a dictator.”

Tymosheko said the only solution to the situation is an immediate election of the president, Parliament and other authorities.

“It is obvious that the president, the government, Parliament, the Constitutional Court were elected according to another constitution that had been eliminated today,” Tymoshenko said.

“They were not authorized by the people with the amount of powers that had been provided by the ruling of the Constitutional Court,” she said.

“That’s why, there is only one conclusion: the president, Parliament, and the government must be re-elected at urgent presidential and parliamentary elections tat must be monitored by democratic world community.” (tl/ez)