Ukraine's leader faces appointing his enemy
President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine, the reformer who rode a wave of popular protests to office in 2004 but later suffered a defeat for his party in parliamentary elections, was faced Wednesday with a choice of disbanding Parliament or appointing his political enemy as prime minister.
In a round of maneuvering, Yushchenko, who has presided over four months of a stormy deadlock after the March 26 parliamentary elections, where his Our Ukraine party won only 14 percent of the vote, met Tuesday with Viktor Yanukovich, his pro-Russian former opponent who was vanquished in Yushchenko's Orange Revolution.
Being forced to accept Yanukovich as prime minister - he was openly supported by Russia during the scandal- tainted 2004 elections - would undermine Yushchenko's efforts to guide Ukraine closer toward political and economic ties with Europe, rather than Russia.
The swirl of negotiations, threats and posturing coming out of Ukraine broadcast a sense of disarray and frustration, with politicians switching allegiances and offering wildly differing interpretations of their country's constitution. To smooth their differences, Yushchenko has asked Yanukovich to sign a joint statement of principles.
"Unfortunately, the pact has not been signed," Yushchenko said, according to a report on Ukraine's Union news agency. "What worries me most is that Ukraine's five leading political forces failed to compromise on key priorities of the Constitution and national development."
The dispute underscored the lingering acrimony in Ukraine, a year and a half after the Orange Revolution protests. A fragile coalition between Yushchenko's party and his former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, collapsed in July amid scuffles in Parliament and as lawmakers opposed to this combination physically barricaded the podium to block a vote.
A former supporter of the so-called orange group, the Socialist Party leader, Oleksandr Moroz, then switched sides and joined Yanukovich's Party of Regions.
Yushchenko and Yanukovich are divided over whether Ukraine should join NATO, the privatization of state property and the culturally divisive question of elevating Russian to the status of an official second language.