Ukraine's parliament passed a law on Mar. 9 that allows individual deputies to join a coalition group, rather than insist that a faction joins en bloc.
The amendment, passed with 235 votes in the 450-seat assembly, opens the door for Yanukovych’s Regions Party to poach individual members of former president Victor Yushchenko’s loose Our Ukraine alliance.
Under previous rules, deputies could only join a coalition if a majority of their party voted to join as a whole faction.
The change should allow Yanukovych’s party to secure the parliamentary majority it needs to form a new government, allowing it to move more swiftly to tackle Ukraine’s deep economic problems.
Allies of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was ousted last week after losing a bitterly fought presidential run-off to Yanukovych in February, condemned the move.
"We call this a constitutional coup d’etat," said Tymoshenko lawmaker Ivan Kyrylenko, and urged Yanukovych either to seek a "real coalition" or call a snap parliamentary election.
Yanukovych’s victory is expected to tilt the ex-Soviet republic — split between a Russian-leaning south and east and a Western-friendly west and centre — back towards Moscow after five years of fractious pro-Western rule following the Orange Revolution.
The country of 46 million people badly needs political stability to tackle a debilitating economic crisis that saw gross domestic product (GDP) contract by 15 percent in 2009, and to restart talks with the International Monetary Fund on a $16.4 billion bailout package.
TYMOSHENKO URGES UNITY
Trying to avoid new elections, Yanukovych’s Regions Party said it would waste little time after the law is signed by Yanukovych and published in the official gazette.
"As soon as the law enters into force, we will move to form a coalition," said Regions Party deputy Oleksander Yefremov.
Analysts say former finance minister and close Yanukovych ally Mykola Azarov, 63, is the likely next prime minister.
Yanukovych wants a reliable partner in government to avoid the infighting that beset the forces that emerged from the Orange Revolution, when street protests led by Tymoshenko and Yushchenko overturned Yanukovych’s victory in a rigged election.
Our Ukraine, a loose grouping of more than a dozen individual parties, is split over whether to join forces with Yanukovych’s party. Around a dozen of its deputies are in favour, and their support would give the Regions Party the majority it needs in parliament to claim a coalition and then elect a government.
Under the previous rules, a majority of the 72 Our Ukraine deputies would have to vote in favour for the faction, as a whole, to join a coalition.
Tymoshenko has refused to recognise Yanukovych’s victory.
She appeared at a rally to mark the anniversary of the birth of Ukrainian national poet and hero Taras Shevchenko, telling a crowd of several thousand: "We must unite in the name of our ideals, in the name of Ukraine, because the very same forces that are puppets in foreign hands, non-Ukrainian forces, non-Ukrainian leaders, have again come to power."
