KIEV, Nov. 18 – Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko will join thousands of small business owners protesting the approval of new tax legislation, a group whose demands have been shifting towards political issues.

The protests began earlier this week in response to the government pushing through Parliament legislation reducing taxes for corporations, but allegedly making life more difficult for thousands of small businesses.

“We will be with the entrepreneurs on Nov. 22,” Tymoshenko said on Thursday. “This will be the battle for freedom, the battle for democracy and the battle for their lives.”

The protests originally carried only economic demands, but have begun to gradually shift towards political issues after the governing coalition had refused to uphold many amendments.

But the protesters expanded their demands to include calls for referendum on dismissal of both, President Viktor Yanukovych and Parliament, which is dominated by his supporters.

Oleksandr Danyliuk, the leader of the protest, on Thursday called on the small business owners to join a rally in front of Yanukovych’s office in downtown Kiev.

The action will probably merge with an opposition rally that Tymoshenko plans to lead at Maydan Nezalezhnosti, a Kiev downtown square known for igniting the Orange Revolution, a popular uprising against election fraud, in November 2004.

The uprising catapulted then opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko, to the presidency, as he had defeated then prime minister Yanukovych, whose campaign had been resorting to massive fraud, the Supreme Court had found.

Since the election to the presidency at an open vote in February, Yanukovych managed to weaken and to disperse opposition groups by relying on his almost complete control over the country’s court system.

The Constitutional Court, whose four independent judges had been in September replaced with Yanukovych loyalists, had ruled last month to dramatically increase the presidential powers.

The government’s attempts to re-write the tax system, however, ignited a spontaneous protest from small business owners who believe the new Tax Code would make them losing their jobs.

The Code gradually reduces corporate tax to 16% from 25% by 2014, but it also restricts a system of easy tax payments enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of small businesses for a decade.

The changes may lead to losses of more than 1 million jobs, according to Natalia Korolevska, a lawmaker from the Tymoshenko group.

“Hundreds of thousands of people - cab drivers and their family members - will lose their jobs and means for existence,” according to a statement by the Union of Motorists, which joined the protest rally on Thursday. “That’s why the new legislation needs serious overhaul.” (nr/ez)