Defeated Ukrainian politician could serve under rival

UKRAINE’S main opposition party joined together with two other groups in parliament to propose defeated presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovich as prime minister.

The realignment in Ukrainian politics means that Mr Yanukovich could end up serving as prime minister to President Viktor Yushchenko, the man he lost out to in what has become known as the Orange Revolution.

The move underscored divisions in the country between the mainly Russian-speaking east and south and the Ukrainian-speaking west, and the country’s strategic dilemma between close ties with Russia and integration with the West.

The merger creates a three-party coalition of the Party of Regions along with the Socialist and Communist parties. Coalition leaders said they hold a majority of 233 seats in the 450-member parliament.

After the signing, Mr Yanukovich said the parties had created a “crisis coalition. We have a very difficult situation in the state. We need to create order”.

The Socialists deepened the political turmoil that has gripped Ukraine since March parliamentary elections when several members rebelled against a coalition of Mr Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party with its 2004 Orange Revolution allies. Socialist Oleksander Moroz was elected parliament speaker Thursday.

The developments shattered a plan under which a Yushchenko ally was to be elected parliamentary speaker and Yulia Tymoshenko was to be returned to the prime minister’s post, after being fired by Mr Yushchenko in a bitter falling out between partners in the mass protests that ushered him to power.

Mr Yanukovich was Mr Yushchenko’s Kremlin-backed opponent in the 2004 presidential election that sparked the Orange Revolution.

Mr Yanukovich won the election, but it was declared invalid and Mr Yushchenko was elected in a court-ordered repeat vote.