KIEV, Oct. 22 – The Regions Party, Ukraine’s largest opposition group, on Wednesday ruled out support for an economic rescue package drafted by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, pledging to focus instead on its own “anti-crisis program.”

Viktor Yanukovych, the leader of the Regions Party, said the party had already drafted the program that he plans to start implementing after winning the early election in December.

Including the one proposed by President Viktor Yushchenko, this brings to three the number of rival economic rescue packages drafted by main political groups as Ukraine faces financial and economic challenges triggered by international credit market turmoil.

None of the three groups is able to approve the bills on its own, but cooperation between at least two groups is crucial for any rescue package to be approved.

Tymoshenko and Yanukovych scrambled to draft their own packages after Yushchenko submitted more than 10 bills to Parliament on Monday for urgent approval in a bid to avert economic recession.

The bills, however, were immediately stalled in Parliament after Tymoshenko’s lawmakers had for the past two days blocked the podium in Parliament, a trick that makes legislative sessions impossible.

The support from the Regions Party, which commands 175 seats in the 450-seat Parliament, is important for any of the packages to be approved. Tymoshenko does not control the majority after her coalition collapsed in early September, opening door for the early election.

Yanukovych, at a rally in Simferopol on Wednesday, said the Regions Party will not back the Tymoshenko package because “it is aimed only against the people.”

“We will never vote for it,” he said.

Ukraine needs the economic rescue package to be approved quickly to avert significant pressure on the hryvnia, the national currency, which has already lost 9.2% of its value against the US dollar over the past three weeks.

The National Bank of Ukraine has been also trying to stop the run on deposits as millions of people had moved to withdraw their deposits amid concerns that the banking system may fail.

Meanwhile, the Tymoshenko lawmakers have been blocking the podium in Parliament for the past two days, arguing the move was aimed at preventing approval of the bill that unlocks financing of the early election on December 14.

But the blockade may be lifted on Thursday.

“We don’t want to constantly block Parliament,” Oleksandr Turchynov, the first deputy prime minister said Wednesday after the government had approved the Tymoshenko package. “Let’s approve [Tymoshenko’s] anti-crisis bills and then go ahead and approve all nasty bills that you want to approve.”

Neither Tymoshenko nor Yanukovych disclosed details of their economic rescue packages, except that any social spending increases will probably be suspended this year and next.

Yushchenko’s package includes creation of the state stabilization fund, worth “tens of billions of hryvnias,” which will be used to acquire biggest banks or other important businesses that may experience liquidity problems.

Yushchenko’s measures also call for increasing to 100,000 hryvnias, or $20,000, the maximum guarantee of deposits, up from 50,000 hryvnias currently, to calm down the people and to stop the run on deposits. The increase covers up to 98% of deposits currently kept in Ukrainian banks.

The other measures call for slashing by 20% spending on state bureaucracy, review of imports duties to reduce imports, cutting populist social spending and eliminating budget deficits in 2008 and 2009.

The package also addresses potential problem of repayment of almost $40 billion in corporate foreign debts by some banks and companies. Yushchenko said a special team has been already working on ways of optimizing the payments.

The International Monetary Fund, which is in talks with Ukraine over up to $14 billion loan, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development may be asked to help to handle those payments, he said. (tl/ez)