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Ukraine 'orange' parties set to form governing coalition

Iran Materials 21 June 2006 18:05 (UTC +04:00)

(AFP) - Ukraine's estranged pro-Western parties have agreed a final text on reuniting to form a governing coalition after three months of tortuous talks, with the deal hinging on whether lawmakers approve the pact.

Under the document, Yulia Tymoshenko, the fiery "orange revolution" heroine whose interventionist tendencies and support for renationalization made investors uneasy during her stint as premier last year, would return to head the government, a lawmaker in her parliamentary faction told AFP.

Top officials from the three "orange revolution" parties -- President Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine, Tymoshenko's bloc and the Socialists -- said they agreed the text early in the day, reports Trend.

"Today we can say that... we have absolutely no more disagreements," Tymoshenko told parliament in televised comments.

Roman Bezsmertnyi, a top Our Ukraine official, said a formal coalition announcement would come on Thursday or Friday after lawmakers from the three parties sign the agreement -- a move needed for it to become valid.

"We have entered the final stretch," Yushchenko's spokeswoman Iryna Gerashchenko told reporters.

The Ukrainian leader can dissolve parliament and call new elections if no coalition is formed by the end of the week.

The reunited pro-Western "orange" coalition will hold 243 seats in the 450-member Upper Rada legislature. The pro-Russian opposition Regions Party and its allies the Communists will hold 207 seats.

The "orange" parties -- so-called because they backed the mass protests in late 2004 that brought Yushchenko to power -- support to varying degrees the president's goal of driving ex-Soviet Ukraine toward Europe and NATO.

The parties shared power after Yushchenko's inauguration but split acrimoniously in September after Tymoshenko was fired as premier amid furious infighting within the administration.

After a March 26 parliamentary ballot failed to hand any one party enough seats to form the government unilaterally, the trio was forced back to the negotiating table and has been embroiled in stormy talks ever since.

Previous announcements that a coalition agreement was imminent were followed by statements that talks were at a dead end and even on Wednesday, some deputies warned that the process was not yet finished as work still had to be done on a section of the coalition agreement that dealt with regional governance.

If the current text is approved, Tymoshenko's bloc would get the prime minister's post, Our Ukraine the speaker's chair and the Socialists the first deputy premier, Andriy Shevchenko, a deputy with Tymoshenko's bloc, told AFP.

Viktor Yanukovych, the leader of the pro-Russian Regions, said that if a coalition were not announced formally by Thursday, his party would try to push through a vote on parliament's leadership.

A formal coalition agreement will be welcomed by investors and voters after the three-month stalemate that left the government in disarray, harmed the economy and damaged Ukraine's image abroad, observers say.

Though largely supporting Yushchenko's pro-Western drive, the three "orange" parties disagree on the extent of the integration, with the Socialists opposing membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

On Wednesday, Socialist leader Moroz told lawmakers that the coalition agreement says that NATO membership would be decided only via a national referendum.

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