Ukraine's Defiant Parliament Calls For Early Presidential Elections

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's defiant parliament on Monday said it would only support early parliamentary elections a presidential vote is held at the same time, raising the stakes in the country's ongoing political confrontation.

Demonstrators hold Communist flags before a rally to support Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich at Independence Square in Kiev, April 9, 2007
The parliamentary majority has no power to force an early presidential ballot, but its threat showed how deep the standoff between President Viktor Yushchenko and his rival, Premier Viktor Yanukovych, has become.

Yushchenko last week ordered parliament dissolved and called snap elections for May 27, accusing Yanukovych and his parliamentary majority of trying to usurp power in the ex-Soviet republic.

Yanukovych and his supporters have called the order unconstitutional and refused to honor it. They have appealed to Ukraine's Constitutional Court, which is expected to begin hearings on the issue this week.

The standoff has provoked the biggest political crisis in this ex-Soviet republic since the 2004 Orange Revolution mass protests against Yanukovych's fraud-marred presidential victory.

Yushchenko brought hundreds of thousands of supporters to the street, and later won a court-ordered revote.

This time, it is Yanukovych who has brought his supporters to the streets. They have set up a tent camp in a central Kiev park, and pledged to increase their numbers to up to 50,000 on Tuesday.

"We are not against early elections, we are against calling elections illegally," parliament said in a statement to the public approved by 258 lawmakers — all Yanukovych supporters — in the 450-seat legislature.

The statement said that if early parliamentary elections were held, this ex-Soviet republic must also hold early presidential elections and put to a referendum the question of whether Ukraine should seek membership in NATO.

The pro-Western Yushchenko has pushed for Ukraine to join NATO, but the Russian-leaning Yanukovych put Ukraine's bid on hold.

Yushchenko could find himself in a very fragile position if the 18-judge Constitutional Court rules that his dissolution order was unconstitutional and cancels the early elections.

Yanukovych's parliamentary allies, the Communists, have said they would immediately launch impeachment proceedings against the president.

However, Yanukovych currently only has the support of about 260 lawmakers in the 450-seat house — less than the 300 needed to impeach Yushchenko.

Source: International Herald Tribune