(RIA Novosti) - Ukraine has a new parliamentary coalition, the parliamentary speaker said Tuesday.
The new alliance comprises the pro-Russian Party of Regions, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party, whose exit from the previous "orange" coalition of three Western-leaning factions led to its disintegration, reports Trend.
Speaker Oleksandr Moroz, the leader of the Socialist Party, was booed by members of pro-presidential Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc when he officially announced the creation of the new coalition.
Earlier Moroz had been unable to open a plenary meeting because of a fist-fight involving a dozen of deputies from the left-leaning leftist and Western-oriented factions.
Deputies from Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc had threatened to block the work of the 450-seat legislature, mirroring a move made by the pro-Russian Party of Regions at the end of June.
About 50 deputies from the Party of Regions surrounded the podium at the beginning of the Tuesday meeting to prevent the "orange" deputies - so-called for their support of the 2004 "orange revolution" that propelled Viktor Yushchenko to the presidency - from gaining access to the podium.