KIEV, July 16 — Ukraine’s largest opposition group on Monday launched a campaign to impeach President Viktor Yanukovych over alleged violations of the constitution and persecution of opposition leaders.

The “Ukraine against Yanukovych” project will involve the collection of signatures in support of a lawsuit against Yanukovych, and then launching the impeachment process in Parliament.

“We want to dismiss Yanukovych through impeachment,” Arseniy Yatseniuk, the leader of the opposition Batkivshchyna group, said at a press conference. “Real legal reasons are needed for this. In the lawsuit, we outlined the legal, not political reasons.”

The lawsuit is supposed to be based on a controversial ruling by the Constitutional Court on October 1, 2010, which had triggered an overnight change of the constitution, with Yanukovych receiving a massive power boost. The court is widely thought to be controlled by Yanukovych loyalists.

“According to the Article 5 of the Constitution, nobody can usurp the state power,” Yatseniuk said in the lawsuit to the High Special Court. “However, starting from October 1, 2010, the defendant made actions that he had no right to make.”

“So one can make conclusions that there were facts of usurpation of power by the defendant via appropriation of extra powers that he had not been authorized by the Ukrainian people,” Yatseniuk said.

Yanukovych is under fire from the West over the politically tainted jailing of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the country’s top opposition leader. European Union leaders boycotted Euro 2012 football championship games in Ukraine last month over her imprisonment.

Although there is a little chance that the opposition groups will successfully impeach Yanukovych, the campaign will serve to energize opposition supporters ahead of the October 28 parliamentary elections.

Opposition groups plan to pursue the case even if the Ukrainian court rejects the lawsuit.

“If the High Special Court rejects the lawsuit, the opposition group will file the suit at the European Court of Human Rights or other international courts,” Yatseniuk said. (tl/ez)