The Verkhovna Rada never had an extraordinary session on February 23, as demanded by BYuT. The Speaker’s press secretary Olha Chorna informed that Volodymyr Lytvyn decided not to call an extraordinary session and returned to the Party of Regions their resolution on the Tymoshenko cabinet’s responsibility because of what was described as the wrong legal format of signatures required for submitting the resolution. BYuT was eager to debate it on Tuesday and First Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov earlier declared that there must be no uncertainty about power.
Once again BYuT’s initiative crashed into the rock of ambitions of parliament’s smallest faction, the Lytvyn Bloc (BL). As usual, the Speaker practically demonstrated his “multivectorial” policy, trying to (a) sell his VR golden share to the highest bidder and (b) prove that parliament and Ukraine still need Lytvyn. The latter end justifies about all means. Otherwise it would be hard to explain Speaker Lytvyn’s conduct of late, considering his legal BYuT-NU-NS-BL coalition membership, especially after the runoff. The man has behaved as though he were not a member of either the current coalition or even the Verkhovna Rada.
Yulia Timoshenko’s post-campaign stand can be criticized, on the one hand, but on the other she lost by a narrow margin (Yanukovych won in nine regions of Ukraine plus Sevastopol and Tymoshenko in sixteen plus Kyiv). This offers her sufficient room for maneuver, considering that for the first time in Ukraine’s election history the new president was elected by less than 50 percent of the electorate. “I want to state that I will not form any coalitions with Yanukovych, under any circumstances… I will not sign any declarations or memorandums with him because I do not recognize him as President of Ukraine and because I reject his anti-Ukrainian policy,” Yulia Tymoshenko stated in her message to the Ukrainian people.
In other words, there will be no PR-BYuT coalition, so Tymoshenko’s main objective is preserving the current coalition, whereas Yanukovych’s is the creation of a new (PR-NU-NS-BL) one. One option is left: early parliamentary elections. Ukraine’s political forces regard it as a last resort, although it would be the most acceptable one for society — in the presence of a new election law, considering that most MPs have long exhausted their public confidence reserves.
