Time Running Out To Hold Early Vote On Dec. 7

KIEV, Ukraine -- Time is running out to stage on schedule a snap parliamentary election called by President Viktor Yushchenko for December, officials said on Friday. They cited delays caused by legal challenges and funding disputes.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is against an early Parliament vote.
Yushchenko dissolved parliament and called the Dec. 7 poll after accusing Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, his estranged ally from the 2004 "Orange Revolution", of destroying the governing coalition through personal ambition.

Tymoshenko opposes the election as "reckless" as an International Monetary Fund mission holds talks in Kiev to help Ukraine weather the effects of the world-wide financial crisis -- a weakened currency and possible banking instability.

Court action launched by the premier's allies has suspended all preparations for the vote and both parliament and the government have refused to provide the necessary finance.

The deputy head of the Central Election Commission said delays had made it very difficult now to meet the target date.

"All the deadlines have already been missed for getting things ready for the vote," Andriy Magera told Interfax Ukraine news agency.

The legal standing of the poll, Ukraine's third in as many years, was plunged into confusion by a series of rulings.

The Kiev appeal court initially put off until next week its examination of a bid by the president's office to overturn the earlier ruling suspending preparations for the poll.

The president then issued decrees reorganising the capital's courts and one court struck down the suspension order launched by the premier's allies. Tymoshenko denounced the move.

"It seem to me this has never happened before in any country - a leader dissolves courts which takes decisions he doesn't like," she told a news conference. "This dreadful practice ruins what is left of the legal system in the country."

Yushchenko has twice appointed Tymoshenko premier, but the two have been constantly in conflict. The coalition linked to the 2004 protests unravelled last month when the president's Our Ukraine party quit its alliance with Tymoshenko's bloc.

Tymoshenko has urged the president to allow the coalition to be restored and says she is ready to meet "any conditions" to persuade him to rescind the decree dissolving the chamber.

The president has vowed to proceed with the election regardless of the prime minister's "gimmicks".

The premier says the poll runs counter to the national interest and has refused an order by the country's top security body to provide the $85 million needed to conduct the poll.

The government, however, has approved draft amendments to the 2008 budgets allowing for election financing. But such a move would require a full-fledged sitting of parliament.

A top presidential adviser, Oleskander Shlapak, on Friday said Yushchenko was considering taking steps to allow the chamber to sit next week to resolve the row.

Source: Kyiv Post