Yulia Tymoshenko makes a comeback as PM
KIEV: Yulia Tymoshenko, a leader of the Orange Revolution against an entrenched pro-Moscow government, was narrowly elected prime minister Tuesday, an outcome that is expected to accelerate Ukraine's drive to move closer with the West.
Tymoshenko won 226 votes Tuesday - the bare majority needed in the 450-member Parliament - from deputies from her bloc and from President Viktor Yushchenko's party. The opposition, led by former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich's Party of Regions, boycotted the vote.
The vote puts Tymoshenko, 47, back in a post she first occupied in 2005 following the mass Orange Revolution protests that swept her and Yushchenko into power - until a bitter falling out with Yushchenko only months later.
Despite the tensions, Tymoshenko and Yushchenko put aside past enmity to form a majority coalition after elections last year.
Before the vote Tuesday, Tymoshenko vowed that the coalition would defend the country's national interests and implement reforms.
"You have real patriots in politics who will hold this flag up high and never drop it," she said. "Today's vote is a moment of truth for the democratic coalition."
The vote was held by hand, and counting took more than an hour.
The laborious procedure was held following complaints that balloting last week on Tymoshenko - in which she failed to win the post by one vote - was invalid due to possible tampering with the voting machine in Parliament.
The vote count indicated the difficulties ahead for the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko coalition. The opposition dominated by the pro-Russian Party of Regions is in a strong position to fight initiatives by the Western-leaning reformist coalition.
"We remember well how the Orange team destroyed the economy and began redistributing property," Yanukovich said.
Hanna Herman, a party of regions lawmaker, predicted that the coalition would not last long, saying: "The earlier they come, the earlier they'll leave."
Changes in loyalty are frequent in Ukrainian politics, and an attempt to return Tymoshenko to the prime minister's office in 2006 derailed when a formerly allied party crossed over to join a coalition with the Party of Regions.
Tymoshenko was the most energetic and vivid figure of the 2004 Orange Revolution protests that helped power Yushchenko into the presidency. The protests broke out after a presidential election, plagued by fraud, in which Yanukovich was declared the winner.
The Supreme Court annulled the election, and Yushchenko won the rerun.
The Orange Revolution left her and Yushchenko in deep opposition to Yanukovich, who returned as prime minister in 2006. Yushchenko this year accused Yanukovich of trying to usurp power and called early elections; his and Tymoshenko's parties cobbled together a narrow majority of seats in the September vote.
The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor, called Tymoshenko's election a vote for reform.
"It's great to have a prime minister that we can now deal with, and we hope that this is the first step toward forming a reform-minded government," he said. "We hope there will be a stable government."
Yushchenko has consistently aimed to reorient the country of 45 million people away from Moscow and toward the West, including pushing for quick membership in NATO and the European Union.