Ukraine Demos Target High Court, Russian MPs Arrive

KIEV, Ukraine -- Demonstrators and political pressure groups on both sides of Ukraine's ongoing constitutional crisis focused on the country's highest court on Wednesday, as a delegation of Russian legislators arrived in the former Soviet republic.

Communist supporters of Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych attend a rally on Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 11, 2007. Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych urged President Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday to halt his order to dissolve parliament and call early elections, warning of unspecified 'consequences' if he refused.
More than 1,000 activists supporting parliament's side of the conflict gathered outside the supreme constitutional court, waving banners and chanting slogans accusing President Viktor Yushchenko of illegally dissolving parliament.

Yushchenko, a proponent of market economics and closer Ukrainian relations with Europe, last week ordered the legislature closed and called for new elections, citing alleged constitutional violations by the parliamentary majority in forming a ruling coalition.

The Ukrainian capital Kiev has seen marches and protests - all peaceful so far - almost every day since Yushchenko's order.

The morning demonstration outside the constitutional court was likewise low-key, with non-violent demonstrators shouting primarily for the benefit of television cameras. Some 50 police were observing the gathering.

A column of 2,000 pro-Yushchenko demonstrators marched by the court house later in the morning. The sides traded insults but there was no violence.

More than 25,000 parliament supporters gathered in Kiev's central Maidan square in late afternoon.

Some 2,000 Yushchenko supports held a rally a few hundred metres away, in the nearby Europe Square. The two crowds avoided each other.

Constitutional court hearings on the dissolution order are set to begin on April 17, and according to Yushchenko new elections will take place on May 27.

Many political observers in the country doubt the chances of the poll deadline being met, given the amount of constitutional wrangling needed for it to proceed.

The high court already has missed one deadline to start considering the case, on Tuesday.

Ukraine's cabinet of ministers, which is hostile to Yushchenko and loyal to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, on Wednesday afternoon made government funding for the election illegal.

A possible compromise between Yushchenko and Yanukovich setting the elections on October 27 was under secret discussion between the two camps, the Ukrainska Pravda web magazine reported.

A delegation of 20 Russian MPs arrived in the Ukrainian capital on Wednesday afternoon.

The Moscow legislators were expected to meet Yanukovich, the pro-Russia leader of the parliament majority, as well as other senior parliament officials.

The Russian MPs had no plans to discuss the dispute with Yushchenko, but intended to visit a memorial to Ukrainians killed during famines in the 1930s, senior Yanukovich spokesman Serhy Kivalov said on Channel Five television.

Sergei Markov, a Russian political scientist participating in the trip, criticized the Yushchenko administration's alleged violation of Ukrainian law, saying "protection of human rights is not just an internal Ukrainian matter."

The Russian visit and Markov's widely-reported remarks were little less than a calculated insult by the Kremlin towards Yushchenko, whose supporters generally consider Russia an enemy to Ukrainian independence, and the Soviet government responsible for millions of Ukrainian deaths during the 1930s famines.

Russia MP Aleksander Lebedyev, head of the Russian delegation, told the Inter television station the goal of the Russian visit was only fact-finding and "we have no intention of interfering in Ukrainian internal affairs . we are not taking sides. "

Former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski met with Yanukovich and Yushchenko in afternoon talks, without any publicly-announced result.

Petro Symonenko, head of Ukraine's Communist party and among the most outspoken of Yushchenko's opponents, accused the President of "wanting to force Ukrainians to live not by the constitution . but according to foreign orders. "

During his term as Polish president Kwasniewski was a key mediator between Yushchenko and Yanukovich in Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution, which eventually propelled Yushchenko into the presidential office and Yanukovich into the opposition.

Yanukovich's faction gained a parliament majority in 2006 elections, with Symonenko's Communists a junior partner in the coalition.

Source: Jurnalo