New Orange coalition to blossom in Ukraine?
Ukraine’s President Yushchenko has held coalition talks with the leaders of the parties who made it through to the newly-elected parliament. A week after the early ballot, the country's rival political forces are struggling to reach a consensus.
Not all of the political forces want to make up part of the broad coalition. Despite Yushchenko’s request, the President’s Our Ukraine Party and the Yulia Timoshenko's Bloc have already announced their refusal to hold any coalition talks with the Prime Minister’s Party of Regions. At the same time, the two “Orange” parties have said they are ready to form a coalition after the final results of the election are announced, which is to happen in about a week.
“Our party together with the Our Ukraine party is ready to announce a coalition after the official results of the election are made public. There’s no alternative for us – only a union of democratic forces. But we are ready to grant significant rights to whoever becomes the parliamentary opposition,” Yulia Timoshenko stated after meeting the President.
The “Orange” parties offered the current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich the job of a vice premier in the next government as well as other deputy posts in the parliament. But it may not be enough for the party of regions which came first in the September vote. Some of its leaders have already threatened not to swear in at all which may lead yet to another election.
This political stalemate, however, can be resolved differently. Many political experts believe that when the “Orange” coalition is formed, the Party of Regions will be offered a number of key posts in the government.
“If our party becomes part of the coalition, we will have the prime minister's seat. We are ready for this responsibility and we have a right to it as the winners of the election. If we are not in the coalition, than our only option will be to become the opposition and that’s what we will do,” the Party of Regions leader, Viktor Yanukovich, noted on Monday.
