Ukraine's parliament will hold a vote of no confidence in the government of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the assembly's speaker said on Mar. 1.
Analysts say the fact that party leaders agreed to hold the vote showed Yanukovych’s Regions Party were confident they would have enough support to pass the motion. Previous votes last month showed Tymoshenko’s bloc no longer controls a majority.
If the vote succeeds, Tymoshenko and her government will remain until a new cabinet replaces them. Parliament faces weeks of horse trading to replace the ruling coalition and create a new government.
Tymoshenko lost to Yanukovych in a run-off presidential election on Feb. 7 that is expected to tip the country of 46 million people back towards Russia.
The fiery prime minister, who has refused to accept Yanukovych’s victory, was in typically combative mood, telling a cabinet meeting the vote should be held as soon as possible.
"I insist that everything be made clear in parliament," she said.
"Who in parliament supports the anti-Ukrainian, anti-democratic, anti-European development of the state with all its corruption of oligarchs, and who is for the development of democracy, the development of Ukraine’s European path, the strengthening of its independence and sovereignty."
BRUSSELS, THEN MOSCOW
A new government will have to tackle a financial crisis that saw the economy contract 15 percent in 2009 and will need to restart talks with the International Monetary Fund on a suspended $16.4 billion bailout package.
If the vote passes and the Tymoshenko-led alliance formally collapses, the various parliamentary factions have 30 days to form a new coalition and 60 days to form a new government.
If this proves impossible, President Yanukovych has the right to call a new parliamentary election.
Ukraine is desperately in need of political stability after years of bitter infighting between the leaders of the pro-Western Orange Revolution of 2004.
Yanukovych has pledged to balance his country between Europe and ex-Soviet master Russia, the source of the gas that runs through Ukraine to the West.
Underscoring the point, Yanukovych made his first foreign trip as president on Monday to Brussels, where the European Union called for rapid progress on the modernisation and restructuring of Ukraine’s gas sector.
The new president travels to Moscow on Friday.
