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Our Ukraine to go into official opposition
Journal Staff Report

KIEV, June 21 – President Viktor Yushchenko’s party, Our Ukraine, will hold a meeting June 27 to officially declare its opposition to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s government, a move that may trigger a major government reshuffle.

Yushchenko, who has been strengthening control over his party by appointing Vira Ulianchenko, a long-time loyalist, to a senior post in May, has repeatedly stated his opposition to Tymoshenko’s policy.

Yushchenko lost control over Our Ukraine group in Parliament in December 2008, when many of his lawmakers defied him by joining the Tymoshenko-led coalition, which has been challenging the president ever since.

The pressure is now growing on those lawmakers to quit the coalition, a move that may automatically trigger an early parliamentary election this year.

“I know that work is being done to make some [lawmakers] quit the
coalition in order to topple it and to open way for the early election,” Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, a member of the coalition, said Sunday. “One of the scenarios is holding the early parliamentary election.”

Two biggest regional branches of Our Ukraine - in Lviv and in Kharkiv - on Sunday called on the party to declare its opposition to the Tymoshenko government, and urged Our Ukraine lawmakers to quit the coalition.

The Kharkiv branch said it “demands [Our Ukraine] group to quit the coalition since the Tymoshenko Bloc has long stopped implementing the coalition agreement and voter promises.”

The Lviv branch called on the group to quit the coalition, but also urged Our Ukraine supporters to quit the government, a move that may effectively paralyze the government of Tymoshenko.

The 25-strong government currently has three vacancies: the defense minister, the foreign minister and the finance minister. Two more ministers, Transportation Minister Yosyp Vinskiy and Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, submitted their resignations citing different reasons over the past 30 days.

The government becomes incapable if there are a total of nine vacant seats in the Cabinet and this scenario may come in play if Our Ukraine supporters decide to quit the government, analysts said.

Tymoshenko - despite her repeated assurances - does not control the majority in Parliament, which explains why she has been so far unable to fill the vacant seats in the government. She has been refusing to admit the loss of the majority because this would require her to surrender the post of the prime minister.

The early parliamentary election, ahead of the next presidential election in January 2010, has been increasingly becoming an option discussed by leaders of political groups in Parliament.

Mykola Azarov, the chief campaign strategist for Viktor Yanukovych, the leader of the opposition Regions Party, said Tymoshenko has recently approached the campaign staff by seeking to schedule simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections later this year.

Tymoshenko faces mounting problems with the economy due to severe economic crisis and lack of legislative support for any anti-crisis measures.

That’s why has been quietly seeking to schedule the elections as soon as possible as further delay would only further reduce her popular support, Azarov said.

“Due to the crisis, the Tymoshenko Bloc is interested in the earliest date possible. Tymoshenko is even ready to go for simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections,” Azarov said in an interview with Dzerkalo Tyzhnia weekly published Saturday. “Recently, we received such a proposal from her. The only condition: November 25.”

But the Regions Party is lukewarm to the proposal because there is a chance that the Constitutional Court may reject the November 25 as the date of the next presidential election.

The court on May 13 rejected October 25, another date that had been pushed for by Tymoshenko, while Yushchenko, citing the constitution, said the next presidential election must be held on January 17, 2010.

“That’s why I believe that the only constitutional date for the presidential and - if we reach a compromise – for the parliamentary election is January 17,” Azarov said. (tl/ez)




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