Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her ruling coalition was expected to be ousted in a no-confidence vote yesterday, setting the seal on Ukraininan President Viktor Yanukovych’s election triumph last month.
Tymoshenko on Tuesday said she was likely to lose the political showdown with Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and accused the speaker of parliament of undermining her majority.
A new coalition, which may be formed within days, will be “false” and her coalition was “ruined illegally,” she told reporters in Kiev. Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn earlier told lawmakers “four parliamentary groups discussed the coalition status and decided that the coalition does not exist as such.”
PHOTO: EPA
Tymoshenko has fought to hang on to power after losing the Feb. 7 presidential run-off vote to Yanukovych. She’s accused her opponent of falsifying more than 1 million votes, though she failed to win court backing for the allegation. The legislature has been in limbo since September, preventing it from passing a budget needed to keep an IMF loan in place and jeopardizing any economic resurrection.
Ivan Kyrylenko, head of Tymoshenko’s parliamentary group, said Lytvyn’s comments were part of a “dangerous practice” that breaches Ukraine’s constitution.
“Lytvyn’s statement will not be endorsed by Tymoshenko’s bloc as it is not legally clear and there will be different legislative assessments,” said Yuriy Yakymenko, an analyst at the Razumkov Center for Political and Economic Studies in Kiev.
Tymoshenko has said she would step down immediately if she loses the no-confidence vote, the Ekonomicheskie Izvestia newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing Kyrylenko. She would hand the premiership over to one of her two deputies, who would stand in as acting prime minister until parliament forms a new governing coalition, Kyrylenko said, Izvestia reported.
Lytvyn, who also leads the smallest bloc in the Kiev-based assembly, said he was able to establish that she no longer commands a majority after speaking with representatives from Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, former president Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine, the Communists and Lytvyn’s own bloc.
The cost to protect Ukraine debt against default dropped and bond yields fell to the lowest since 2008 on Tuesday.
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