Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Yushchenko: Coup underway in Ukraine parliament

Via RFE/RL:

KYIV -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has threatened to dissolve parliament following the collapse of the pro-Western ruling coalition.
In a televised address, Yushchenko said he would use his right to dissolve parliament and call early elections if a new coalition is not formed within 30 days.
He also said a " political and constitutional coup" was under way in parliament.
Yushchenko's party decided earlier in the day to leave the eight-month-old coalition that it forms with the bloc of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
"A new parliamentary coalition has been created de facto in the Verkhovna Rada," Yushchenko said. "The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc has entered into an alliance with the Party of Regions and the Communists. And this creation is based, I stress, not on Ukraine's state interests. The democratic majority has been betrayed by [the creation of] this alliance."

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