UKRAINE:The leaders of Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution clinched a deal last night to end months of squabbling and create a new coalition government, after official results confirmed their joint victory in a recent general election.
The final tally of votes cast in the September 30th ballot gave the party of former premier Yulia Tymoshenko 156 seats, and the Our Ukraine Party, backed by President Viktor Yushchenko, 72 seats, enough for a slender majority in the 450-seat Rada, or parliament.
Prime minister Viktor Yanukovich's Regions Party will be the largest single group in the next Rada, with 175 seats, and his Communist Party allies took a further 27 places.
The Lytvyn Bloc was the only other party to cross the 3 per cent threshold for entry into parliament, claiming 20 seats. Its leaders said before the election they would be willing to discuss an alliance with either Mr Yanukovich or the "Orange" alliance.
"There remains no more time for delay," Mr Yushchenko said after meeting Ms Tymoshenko, who now easily outstrips him as Ukraine's most popular pro-western politician.
"This will enable the country to emerge from a vicious circle of crises and conflicts and open the way to the future," he added.
He had said the coalition deal would be signed today but - in a possible portent of power struggles to come - an accord was announced shortly afterwards, as Ms Tymoshenko had promised.
The pact is to be formally signed when the new parliament holds its first session, leaving sceptical Ukrainians to wonder if it is really a done deal, after witnessing almost three years of broken promises and recrimination from their leaders.
The election marked a stunning success for Ms Tymoshenko, whom Mr Yushchenko sacked as prime minister in September 2005 after seven months in office, as the team that defeated Mr Yanukovich in the Orange Revolution collapsed in acrimony.
She now wants a return to the premiership, while offering an olive branch to Mr Yanukovich in the form of deputy ministerial posts for his allies and leadership of the accounts chamber that monitors government spending.
Mr Yanukovich, who favours Ukraine's accession to the EU but opposes Nato membership, is on better terms with Moscow than his rivals, and dominates politics in the industrialised, largely Russian-speaking east of the country.
