KIEV, June 21 (RIA Novosti) - Pro-presidential grouping Our Ukraine has nominated businessman and former national Security Council secretary Petro Poroshenko for the post of parliamentary speaker, the bloc's press service said Wednesday.

The press service also said two other nominees - acting Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov and the head of Our Ukraine's political committee, Roman Bezsmertny - had withdrawn their candidacies.

Our Ukraine's political council was scheduled to approve Poroshenko's candidacy at a session due 5.00 p.m. Moscow time (1.00 p.m. GMT).

Poroshenko, one of President Viktor Yushchenko's closest associates and Ukraine's richest men, owns a number of food industry enterprises and headed the Ukrainian National Security Council in February-August 2005.

Our Ukraine is one of three movements - the others being the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the Socialist Party - that entered talks on forming a parliamentary coalition after a March 26 election failed to produce a clear winner, but disagreements over distribution of posts kept them from reaching an agreement.