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Yanukovych: Give Yulia a chance to govern
Journal Staff Report

KIEV, May 14 – In a major change of his earlier rhetoric, opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych said Thursday that Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko must be give time to run the government through the next presidential election.

The comment shows the opposition Regions Party has effectively dropped its calls for early parliamentary elections this year, making such an election extremely unlikely.

In a further evidence of the change, the Regions Party, which had been blocking Parliament for two days, on Thursday let lawmakers reopen the session for about 1 minute before resuming the blockade.

The trick apparently eliminated the chance for President Viktor Yushchenko to dismiss Parliament on Monday, May 18, when it would have been out of session for the 30 days since April 17.

“Let them work and tell the people ahead of the [presidential] election what they have driven the country to over the past five years, beginning with the president, the prime minister and members of the coalition,” Yanukovych said at a press conference in Donetsk. “They should not be bothered, they should be helped.”

“Everybody understands that there will be no [parliamentary] election before the presidential election,” Yanukovych said. “And besides the government must be given an opportunity to fight the crisis if they can do it.”

The turnaround shows that Yanukovych has been seeking to run for the presidency from the opposition platform by attacking both, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko.

The tactic may pay back as opinion polls suggest Yanukovych has been enjoying the greatest public support among other politicians as people blame the government for slow reaction to the economic crisis.

Yanukovych had scored support from 24.8% of respondents polled between April 25 and May 5 by Research & Branding Group, an independent survey agency, and was ahead of Tymoshenko (15.6%) and former parliamentary speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk (13.9%).

Yushchenko scored 2.6% support in the poll, suggesting his reelection is unlikely.

The agency polled 2,079 respondents throughout Ukraine and said the margin of error was 2.2%.

Meanwhile, the date of the next presidential election is yet to be defined by Parliament after the Constitutional Court on Wednesday rejected the date of October 25 that had been earlier agreed between Yanukovych and Tymoshenko.

Yushchenko believes the next presidential election must be held on January 17, 2010, or a week before his full five-year term in office is due to expire.

Andriy Shevchenko, a lawmaker from the Tymoshenko group, submitted a bill to Parliament on Thursday suggesting the next election must take place on December 27.

But Yanukovych said his legal advisors suggest the election may be scheduled either on December 6 or on January 17, 2010. He said he believed the election must be held in January. (tl/ez)




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