You're reading: Our Ukraine says it reserves right to negotiate coalition with other parliamentary factions

The faction of the Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense bloc reserves the right to negotiate a possible majority coalition with other parliamentary factions apart from the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko.

The faction head, Mykola Martynenko, announced this from the parliament’s rostrum on Tuesday.

Martynenko said that the Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense offered to appoint its representative to the post of prime minister to prevent the concentration of power in one pair of hands.

"Our faction is ready to assume responsibility for economic reform," Martynenko said.

However, the faction’s coalition partners from the BYT faction have flatly refused to surrender the post of prime minister, and are putting forward more and more proposals, he said.

In addition, the BYT is trying to check members of the Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense faction for their loyalty to the BYT faction, he said.

"We cannot accept this and we reserve the right to hold consultations on a coalition with other factions," the lawmaker said.

Asked whether his faction was prepared to offer a nomination for prime minister, he said, "the nominee will be a member of [our] faction, an experienced and highly professional person."