Western-leaning Viktor Yushchenko took a significant step toward resolving the country's protracted political crisis early Thursday by backing his long-time rival and the parliamentary majority's choice for the prime minister's job.
"The president's move seems quite typical of him," said Dmitry Vydrin, who is also a member of Yulia Tymoshenko's opposition bloc. President Yushchenko has secured a "breathing space for the summer period, but has lost the ability to form executive and legislative power effectively," he said.
The political analyst said his bloc, which had temporarily led a Western-leaning coalition in parliament after the March elections, had decided to go into opposition in such a situation. "Our task is to become an opposition of the European kind, and to strengthen the country by proposing alternative drafts that will be more effective and have greater demand from the people," the Vydrin said.
At roundtable talks convened by the president to broker an agreement with leading politicians on key policy issues and sign a national unity pact, former prime minister and leading "orange revolution" figure Yulia Tymoshenko slammed the document proposed by the leader, calling it an act of "orange capitulation".
"Ninety percent of the document is composed of trivial provisions and empty declarations that are used in many platforms but are never implemented by politicians," she said.
However, President Yushchenko urged her to stop talking "empty politics," and criticized her for not participating in the drafting of any version of the document.
The president and leaders of the other parliamentary factions initialed the national unity agreement on Thursday.
The "anti-crisis" coalition, formed after the Socialists defected from Tymoshenko's "orange" coalition, had nominated Party of Regions leader Yanukovych for the prime minister's job in July. Early Thursday morning, just after the Constitutional deadline expired for backing a candidate for the premiership, Yushchenko announced that he would back the nomination of Yanukovich, who he had defeated in a re-run of the 2004 presidential election.
