Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko yesterday called general elections after dissolving parliament as parties failed to resurrect a ruling pro-Western coalition in the former Soviet state.
Yushchenko decreed to “set parliamentary elections for Dec. 7, 2008,” said a statement on his official Web site, ending weeks of uncertainty about whether the coalition could patch up its differences.
The crisis has raised concerns in the West that pro-Moscow parties may come to power in the eastern European country of 47 million people, casting doubt on Kiev’s bid to strengthen ties with Washington and Brussels.
PHOTO: EPA
Pro-Western parties won a narrow majority in elections held in September last year, though the largest single share of votes went to the pro-Moscow Regions Party, which has strong support in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.
Yushchenko said he would dissolve parliament in a televised speech late on Wednesday that also included sharp words for a fellow pro-Western politician, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a former ally turned bitter arch-rival.
“I am deeply convinced that it was human ambition that destroyed the democratic coalition — one person’s ambition, lust for power, differences in values and putting personal interests ahead of national ones,” Yushchenko said, referring to Tymoshenko.
The prime minister’s allies in turn blamed Yushchenko for the coalition’s disintegration.
“We consider this act to be anti-constitutional and senseless,” the deputy chief of the parliament faction of Tymoshenko’s party, Andrei Portnov, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
“What happened today was 100 percent provoked by the president, who is the one standing behind the coalition’s collapse,” Portnov said.
The coalition fell apart last month after Yushchenko’s party pulled out in protest at Tymoshenko’s decision to support a bid by the pro-Russian opposition to reduce the president’s powers.
Tensions between the pair deepened during the Russian-Georgian war in August, with Yushchenko supporting Tbilisi and charging Tymoshenko with “treason” for her more neutral stance.
Yushchenko and Tymoshenko have had a love-hate relationship since 2004, when they joined forces in the so-called Orange Revolution to overturn the rigged election of pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych as president.
The two are likely rivals in the next presidential elections set for late next year or early 2010, as is Yanukovych, head of the pro-Moscow Regions Party.
December’s vote could also impact Ukraine’s bid to join NATO in spite of vehement opposition from Russia.
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