By RIA Novosti,
Kiev : Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said on Thursday he could lead an electoral coalition at snap parliamentary polls fixed for December 7, the UNIAN news agency said.
Asked whether he would agree to establish and lead a coalition, Yushchenko told reporters in Rome that “I am not ruling it out.”
The Ukrainian president announced his decision to dissolve parliament and call snap parliamentary polls on Wednesday evening. He fixed December 7 as the date for the polls earlier on Thursday.
Yushchenko also said that the country’s lawmakers should settle on Thursday all required procedural and legal issues for the parliamentary elections.
Meanwhile, Olga Herasymyuk, one of the leaders of Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense Bloc, said that the Our Ukraine party is the only pro-presidential party which has a definite chance of gaining a majority in the new parliament.
“There are no more presidential forces besides Our Ukraine party. There is only one presidential force and it is called Our Ukraine. The rest is mythology,” she said.
The country’s pro-Western ruling coalition collapsed on September 3 when the pro-presidential Our Ukraine withdrew from the alliance after the Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc joined with the opposition Party of Regions, led by Russia-friendly Viktor Yanukovych, to approve legislation substantially cutting presidential powers. Yushchenko called the move a “constitutional coup.”
Under the Ukrainian constitution, the president can dissolve parliament and call early elections if no majority coalition is formed within 30 days.
The coalition was officially dissolved on September 16 and, according to the Ukrainian law, elections must take place 60 days after parliament has been dissolved.
Analysts believe that both Yushchenko and Tymoshenko will stand for president in elections due in 2010. The two were allies in the 2004 “Orange Revolution,” but have since drifted apart on a host of issues, including the recent armed conflict between Russia and Georgia.
Yushchenko blamed the recent collapse of the country’s ruling coalition on Yulia Tymoshenko, speaking of “the dominance of personal interests over national ones.”
The parliamentary elections will be the third in Ukraine in less than three years.