2008-10-10

President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine signed an order on Thursday to dissolve Parliament and hold snap elections, raising new uncertainties about Ukraine's tilt toward the West at a moment when the country has become a focal point of rising tensions with Russia.

The move resulted from a worsening rift between Ukraine's two top leaders, Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, one-time allies who have become bitter rivals with differing visions of how Ukraine should handle relations with Russia and West.

The vote, scheduled for Dec. 7, will test Yushchenko's drive to solidify ties with the United States and Europe and steer Ukraine, part of the former Soviet Union, toward membership in NATO, a step that would be likely to antagonize Russia.

Tymoshenko, who joined Yushchenko in leading the so-called Orange Revolution against the country's pro-Moscow government in 2004, now represents a political faction that favors warmer ties with Russia.

The split reflects a deep divide in Ukraine, which has a large ethnic Russian minority and influential business interests that favor closer relations with Moscow, but also a fervent nationalist movement that brought Yushchenko to power and sees Ukraine's future as tied to the West.

Strong gains for Tymoshenko in the parliamentary elections could jeopardize Yushchenko's efforts to join NATO, a step that has grown less popular in Ukraine, but is strongly supported by Washington.

The short war in August between Russia and Georgia has prompted urgent calls, particularly from Washington, for Ukraine and Georgia to be offered a NATO membership plan.

The elections will be the third parliamentary elections since Yushchenko came to power in 2004. At the time, he promised to wrest Ukraine from its corrupt, authoritarian past, though today it remains mired in political stagnation.

Yushchenko's decision followed weeks of raucous political infighting with Tymoshenko, whom he has accused of orchestrating a power grab at the expense of Ukraine's national interests. The two are likely to face off in the next presidential election, scheduled for 2010.

"I am convinced, deeply convinced, that the democratic coalition was destroyed by one thing — the ambition of one person," Yushchenko said Wednesday in a television address during which he announced the dissolution of Parliament. "The Yulia Tymoshenko bloc has become the hostage of its leaders, who are willing to sacrifice everything: our language, security and our European prospects."

Tymoshenko recently sided with Ukraine's opposition to pass measures limiting the president's powers, leading to the collapse of a fragile parliamentary alliance with Yushchenko's party last month.

The prime minister is considering whether to contest Yushchenko's decision to dissolve Parliament and hold new elections before Ukraine's Constitutional Court, her spokeswoman said. Tymoshenko's supporters have called for mass protests.

Speaking in Macedonia on Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reaffirmed Washington's support for Ukraine's NATO ambitions despite the government's instability and said the United States would work with any new coalition that emerged.

Russia has responded angrily to any indication of more NATO expansion, and it recently bolstered its military. In Russia, calls have increased for Moscow to take ownership of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, a mostly ethnic-Russian region where Russia bases its Black Sea Fleet.

Tymoshenko recently began presenting herself as a centrist politician able to bridge the divide between pro-Western forces and those who want to maintain close ties to Russia.

She refused to back Yushchenko in his support for Georgia in the war with Russia, adopting a more neutral stance.

Tymoshenko recently went to Moscow for talks with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia on energy cooperation, a meeting that was almost thwarted when Yushchenko requisitioned her plane after his own plane was said to have had a technical malfunction.

Tymoshenko's overtures to Russia have prompted criticism from Yushchenko's supporters that she has been co-opted by the Kremlin, though Mikhail B. Pogrebinsky, director of the Kiev Center for Political and Conflict Studies, said she would rely heavily on her pro-Western supporters in the parliamentary elections, which he said her bloc would probably win.

Recent opinion polls give Tymoshenko's bloc a slight edge in popularity over the Party of Regions, the main opposition party, which is led by Viktor F. Yanukovich. Yushchenko's parliamentary bloc trails both.

Yanukovich, even more than Tymoshenko, has pushed for better ties with Russia. If his party wins the elections or becomes a partner in a coalition government, the chances of Ukraine pushing for an additional steps to join NATO would be sharply reduced.

NATO countries are to meet in December to discuss granting Ukraine and Georgia membership action plans.

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