Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's bloc is going into
opposition in the Ukrainian parliament, a top party leader declared
Tuesday, suggesting that the party had rebuffed overtures to join a
new coalition headed by the president's rival Viktor
Yanukovych.
"The faction of Our Ukraine, from today, is in the minority, so
it is in opposition," lawmaker Anatoliy Kinakh announced in
parliament, also declaring that the party accepted the legitimacy
of the new, pro-Moscow coalition.
Outside parliament, hundreds of rival protesters supporting and
opposed to the new coalition gathered, blocking off the street and
shouting "shame" at each other as two lines of riot police
separated them. The mood was tense.
This ex-Soviet republic has been in political turmoil since the
March parliamentary election ended without a clear winner, widening
the divide between Ukraine's Russian-speaking east, which looks to
Moscow, and the more nationalist Ukrainian-speaking west, which is
leaning towards the West.
After months of bickering between the former "Orange Revolution"
allies on how to form a coalition, Yanukovych seized the initiative
last week by persuading the president's former ally, the Socialist
party, to switch sides and unite with his party of eastern
Ukrainian industrialists and with the Communists.
Yushchenko complained that the new coalition was illegitimate
because it was formed without giving the former "Orange Revolution"
allies 10 days to try to find a new partner to replace the
Socialists, and threatened to use his power to dissolve parliament
and call new elections.
Those 10 days ran out Monday night, and Parliament Speaker
Oleksandr Moroz, whose decision to bolt from Yushchenko's camp with
the Socialists led to the creation of the new coalition, agreed to
announce the creation of the coalition again Tuesday to remove
those concerns.
The move by Yushchenko's party to accept that and declare itself
in opposition suggests the president is unlikely to dissolve
parliament and call new elections. But tension persisted, with
"Orange Revolution" heroine Yulia Tymoshenko calling the new
political coalition "a coup."
Tymoshenko proposed Tuesday that her party and Yushchenko's bloc
give up their mandates as lawmakers, which would force parliament
to be declared illegitimate.
"I want people of good will, intelligent people who don't
consider Ukraine's independence, its national identity, to be empty
words. I want them to understand that a political coup is taking
place today in parliament," she said in a fiery address.
Outside the building, columns of protesters carrying campaign
flags in support of Tymoshenko who has demanded Yushchenko dissolve
parliament and call new elections shut down a main road.
Yanukovych's supporters stood opposite them, with helmet-clad
police in between. Rows of regular, uniformed police also stood
along the gates surrounding parliament.
(China Daily July 19, 2006)
