Viktor Yushchenko announced at about 2:00 a.m. local time (11:00 p.m. Wednesday GMT) that he would send the nomination of Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych, whom he defeated in the re-run of the 2004 presidential election, to the Supreme Rada.
"I decided to nominate Yanukovych as prime minister," Yushchenko said after consultations with Yanukovych and parliamentary speaker Oleksandr Moroz, who also leads the Socialist Party in the coalition with Regions and the Communists.
The president had until midnight local time (9:00 p.m. GMT) to either sign off the parliamentary majority's choice for the premier's job or dissolve parliament, which opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, like Yanukovych a former premier, had demanded.
The parliamentary speaker gathered 303 lawmakers on Wednesday night for an extraordinary session in the Rada, where deputies awaited the president's announcement. Tymoshenko, who has consistently opposed Yanukovych's return the premier's chair after two years in opposition to Yushchenko's Western-leaning governments, led her eponymous faction out of the 450-seat Rada in late July and has refused to sign any document installing pro-Russia Yanukovych in power.
Yushchenko told deputies that he was not going to dissolve the parliament and a national unity agreement would be officially signed Thursday morning.
"Tomorrow [on Thursday] we will hold the official signing of the [unity] agreement," the president said in a televised statement. "I will comment in detail on Ukraine's domestic and foreign policies."
He said Moroz, outgoing Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov, Yanukovych and Roman Bezsmertny, the head of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine faction in parliament, had already initialed the agreement.
"I am sure other partners will join this document," the president said.
Five factions took up seats in Ukraine's parliament after the March 26 elections: the Party of Regions, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Our Ukraine, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party.
Months of wrangling followed the ballot, in which the Party of Regions gained most votes, as first one coalition led by Tymoshenko was formed and then collapsed, and then a second led by Yanukovych emerged.
But Yushchenko, who had previously indicated he was against new elections because they would be too expensive, signaled to the nation that it was time to move forward and ensure political stability.
"The most important thing is that we found for the first time today a formula to maintain constitutional values," he said. "We have a historic chance to ensure five years of stable work in the Supreme Rada."
The president said he was making a step toward the parliament and hoped that it would use this chance constructively.
"Today, we have the opportunity to start from scratch and realize the values declared on Maidan," Yushchenko said, referring to the central scene of the 2004 "orange revolution" that swept him to power.
