KIEV, Oct. 17 – Batkivshchyna and Svoboda, two opposition parties that may enter Parliament after October 28 elections, pledged to work together to impeach President Viktor Yanukovych and to reverse his policies.

An agreement is expected to be signed on Friday by Arseniy Yatseniuk, the leader of Batkivshchyna, and by Oleh Tiahnybok, the leader of Svoboda, the parties said Wednesday.

Vitaliy Klichko, a heavyweight boxing champion and the leader of the Udar party, currently the most popular opposition group, on Wednesday said he was not likely to join the agreement before the election.

“Today it is not the time to share the [future] portfolios,” Klichko said, his party reported. “First, we have to win over the [ruling] Regions Party and to create a democratic majority. Only after that we can talk about the next steps.”

The developments come as Udar has been rapidly growing in popularity to recently become the No. 2 most popular group with about 16% with Batkivshchyna losing its ground to about 15%, most recent opinion polls show. Svoboda also managed to increase support that is now hovering at around 5%, just enough to clear the threshold for entering Parliament.

The Regions Party enjoys support from about 20% of respondents and is the most popular group, while its ally Communist Party has managed to improve its popularity to 9%, according to recent opinion polls.

The plan to sign the agreement is most likely aimed at energizing Batkivshchyna and Svoboda supporters ahead of the vote, and to publically highlight their differences with Udar.

This underscores a hidden rivalry between Batkivshchyna and Udar for the place of the most popular opposition group that will set a stage for launching a bid at upcoming presidential election in March 2015.

By differentiating itself from Batkivshchyna, Udar has been capitalizing on growing fatigue among Ukrainian voters with established parties that had failed to turn the country around over the past years.

Meanwhile, Klichko did repeatedly express growing concerns with the Yanukovych policies, especially with restrictions of democracy, and pledged to work hard to bring Ukraine closer to Europe.

The developments come days after Batkivshchyna and Udar have failed to agree on withdrawing candidates at key majority districts in Ukraine to reduce competition for each other.

The plan originally called for withdrawing less popular candidates in favor of a stronger ones capable of defeating candidates from the ruling Regions Party.

Udar recalled 32 of its candidates Sunday and Batkivshchyna removed 28 candidates Monday, bringing the number of majority districts at which the parties may cooperate to 60.

There are 225 majority districts in Ukraine that will elect a half of the country’s 450-seat Parliament, with the other half to be elected on a proportional party-list vote.

Udar and Batkivshchyna failed to agree on 11 out of 13 districts in the city of Kiev with both parties refusing to yield despite opinion poll data, thus giving Regions Party candidates an opportunity to prevail.

“We have an experience of signing an agreement that not everybody has eventually wanted to stick to,” Klichko said in apparent remarks about the deal over majority districts.

The agreement to be signed on Friday is expected to call for the impeachment of Yanukovych and for the release of “political prisoners” former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko. Both were jailed for abuse of office. Both denied the charges and said the trial was politically motivated to eliminate the opposition.

The agreement will also call for cancelling the Tax Code that has been drafted by the government and approved by Parliament, as well as cancelling a controversial language legislation that had led to wider use of Russian language in Ukraine. (tl/ez)