The Bogus Marriage. A coalition of the Block of Yulia Tymoshenko and the Party of Regions is likely to be formed in December 2008.

The Thursday’s sitting of Verkhovna Rada lasted only 8 minutes. Members of Parliament decided to take a time-out for extra negotiations, and to renew their work on Tuesday, 9 December. MPs invited the President of Ukraine and Prime Minister to be present on the sitting that day to witness how Parliament will get out of crisis. Viktor Yushchenko will not come to Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday, he’s going to pay a working visit to Lithuania. Maybe that’s right decision: it will be surely not “his day”. In contrary, Yulia Tymoshenko may appear in Parliament – to celebrate another political victory of her party.

As it was predicted earlier, a coalition of the Party of Regions (PR) and the Block of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYT) looks like just a matter of time. At least, leaders and members of both factions are not denying the fact of negotiations on this issue anymore. On 2 December, MP from the BYT faction Valeriy Pysarenko said “the BYT is ready to form a coalition with the Party of Regions”. The same statements were made by some other BYT and PR MPs during this week. In the Party of Regions’ official rhetoric the future coalition is called as “anti-crisis” and “built on pure economic reasons”, not on ideological ground.

According to insider’s information, the text of a new coalition treaty has already been initialized. But it doesn’t mean that the document will be signed on Tuesday. At first, the PR and BYT have to elect a new Speaker. It still may be a leader of the People's Party Volodymyr Lytvyn or member of the Party of Regions and current First Vice-Speaker Oleksandr Lavrynovych. The BYT and PR have enough MPs – 331 (the constitutional majority is 300 MPs out of 450) – to amend the Constitution in first reading. The main goal of the reform will be to elect President of Ukraine not by popular vote, but in Parliament, which is more convenient for big parliamentary parties. After a joint vote on the constitutional amendment the BYT-PR coalition may be officially formed. New allies will go on with the constitutional reform process after the New Year holidays, in early February. As a result, Ukraine may have President Viktor Yanukovych, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and Viktor Yushchenko in opposition, like in “old good times”.

President Yushchenko – of course – doesn't like the BYT-PR reformation ideas. “If this kind of consolidation will not be restrained by the ideological positions, national interests, democratic interests, it may lead to serious challenges for Ukrainian democracy”, he declared on 4 December. President highlighted that the main danger of the BYT-PR coalition is “a deep revision of the Constitution of Ukraine”, which includes the idea of election of President in Parliament. “These are things which are ruining Ukrainian democracy and don’t correspond with our aspirations. This will throw Ukraine back from the sphere of stability for many years”, President argued. He emphasised he “will not allow” that.

Ukrainian media have already informed with reference to the reliable source at the Presidential Secretariat that “there is a new decree on snap election on the President’s working table”, and it is with open date.