Ukrainian Alliance Resumes Its Feuding

MOSCOW, Oct. 3 -- The supposedly reconstituted alliance of the personalities who led Ukraine's Orange Revolution nearly three years ago seemed on the verge of securing a tiny majority in parliament Wednesday but quickly started feuding with each other.

With 99.59 percent of the votes in Sunday's election counted, the party of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and another party allied with President Viktor Yushchenko had secured a total of 44.93 percent of the vote. If they formed a government, they would have a handful more seats than any other combination of parties in parliament.

But the political squabbles that have dogged the two leaders' relations resurfaced as they argued over the merits of bringing their rival, outgoing prime minister Viktor Yanukovych, into a future government.

Yanukovych's Party of Regions got 34.31 percent of the vote, the largest of any party. But even in combination with his Communist Party partners and another smaller group that might ally with him, he appears to have fallen just short of returning to power.

In late 2004, Tymoshenko galvanized the crowds that ultimately forced a rerun of fraudulent presidential elections and secured victory for Yushchenko over his rival, the Russian-oriented Yanukovych.

Western governments welcomed the change, but in ensuing years, they have expressed frustration over the Orange coalition's inability to remain united and establish a stable pro-Western government in the former Soviet republic.

Yushchenko and Tymoshenko had a falling-out in 2005 when Yushchenko dismissed a government led by Tymoshenko because of fierce infighting, opening the way for Yanukovych to reemerge as prime minister after parliamentary elections in March 2006.

The pair made a show of reconciling before Sunday's vote and had seemed set to form a government with her as prime minister.

But on Wednesday, Yushchenko, who is backed by the Our Ukraine party, called on the three major parties to begin negotiations toward what is known in parliamentary systems as a "grand coalition," an alliance of all major parties in a legislature.

"We cannot get real political stability unless the three main parties agree on how the coalition and the cabinet must be formed and what relations must be between the ruling coalition and the opposition," Yushchenko said in televised remarks. "We cannot let talks last long."

Speaking in Berlin, Yushchenko said an "Orange coalition" with a slim majority will "not bring stability to the country," the Ukrainian newswire UNIAN reported. He said the opposition should be given some cabinet and parliamentary posts to ensure stability.

Tymoshenko said in a statement on her Web site that sharing power with the Party of Regions was out of the question. Such a deal would force her into the opposition, she said.

Yushchenko's declaration, while appearing to be the action of a president above partisan politics, may in fact be a negotiating gambit, analysts said. Tymoshenko, whose votes jumped dramatically in Sunday's election, is buoyant, and Yushchenko may wish to rein in her ambitions by holding out the prospect of an alliance with the Party of Regions.