Ukraine President Fights Off Political Rebellion

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko vowed on Saturday to press ahead with plans for early elections in a combative speech aimed against his rebellious Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.

Viktor Yushchenko at Easter services
"My decision is legitimate and constitutional and there will be no going back," Yushchenko said in the televised speech from the Saint Sophia church in the Ukrainian capital Kiev to mark the Easter holiday.

Yushchenko accused his opponents of seeking to impose "tyranny" and "managed democracy" on Ukraine. He also said that he would guarantee security in the current political stand-off.

The crisis, which comes after months of tensions between the two men, was triggered on Monday when Yushchenko ordered the dissolution of parliament and early elections -- a ruling that Yanukovych has refused to obey.

Thousands of Yanukovych supporters have protested in the streets of Kiev over the past five days and hundreds have kept up a round-the-clock vigil in a tent camp set up outside the parliament building.

The crisis pits Yanukovych, who favours strong bonds with Russia, and Yushchenko, who came to power in 2005 promising to build closer ties with the West and seek membership in the European Union and NATO.

The president has said he was forced to issue his order because pro-Russian forces in parliament led by Yanukovych's Regions party were violating the constitution and trying to lure pro-Western deputies over to their camp.

The constitutional court is to meet next week to examine the legality of Yushchenko's decision to dissolve parliament but a final ruling could take up to a month, observers said.

Two rounds of crisis talks between Yushchenko and Yanukovych this week have failed to yield a compromise and the two political leaders appear to be firmly entrenched in their positions.

Yanukovych on Thursday called for international mediation in the stand-off but Yushchenko brushed off the suggestion in his speech on Saturday, saying: "We will find a solution to our problems ourselves."

A rally earlier in the day drew several thousand people protesting against the president's leadership but also appealing for stability at Easter in a country that has been rocked by constant political disputes in recent years.

"I've had enough of living in an unstable country," said Nadezhda Bychenko, a 48-year-old mother of three, who arrived from the city of Kirovograd in southeast Ukraine with around 150 other Yanukovych supporters.

"I'm here for justice and so that there's no war," said Tetyana Ovcherenko, who came on the train from the Kiev region, as her four-year-old granddaughter played in the park outside parliament.

Organisers said that 15,000 people attended the rally on Independence Square, site of the Orange Revolution mass protests that brought Yushchenko to power in 2004. A police official put their number at 7,000.

Korrespondent, a weekly news magazine, said on Saturday that the crisis "could end with a civil confrontation or a return to authoritarianism. The third way is elections."

Another news weekly, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, warned that a constitutional court ruling on whether elections that Yushchenko has decreed for May 27 can go ahead may have little binding power.

"Political forces have invested in people -- judges, lawyers, journalists, political and social experts -- just like in property," the article said.

"The result of this is that there is no referee in the country whose ruling will be recognised by both the opposing parties."

Source: AFP