Rift between Ukraine PM and president worsens

UKRAINE:THE RIFT between Ukraine's prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, and its president, Viktor Yushchenko, deepened yesterday when Ms Tymoshenko's supporters physically prevented Mr Yushchenko from making his state-of-the-nation address in parliament.

Members of Ms Tymoshenko's party blocked her supposed ally from the speaker's rostrum to demand that parliament first pass a raft of anti-inflation measures and approve a new privatisation chief to speed through the sale of state assets.

"For the first time in our history we have an unprecedented case when the parliamentary majority, which bears responsibility for the work of the Ukrainian parliament, is blocking it," Mr Yushchenko said outside the assembly.

He has accused Ms Tymoshenko of fuelling inflation with popular but expensive social spending measures, while she accuses him of hampering vital privatisations and trying to undermine her popularity before a potential challenge for the presidency in 2009 or 2010.

"I call on the government and the coalition: Do not go down the path of populism and instead work on precise anti-inflationary measures," Mr Yushchenko said in an address delivered before television cameras and shown in parliament and across the country.

Allies of Ms Tymoshenko - who led the 2004 Orange Revolution with Mr Yushchenko but was sacked as prime minister the following year, only to return to the post after last year's elections - said they had no choice but to protest at the president's stance.

"We, as a ruling party in the coalition, have to do this. We do not care about the agenda, as we have to fight inflation and change officials," said Ivan Kyrylenko, parliamentary chief of Ms Tymoshenko's party.

The friction between the stolid Mr Yushchenko and the fiery Ms Tymoshenko is exacerbated by her greater popularity and the possibility that she will run against him in the next presidential election.

With the coalition government under intense strain, Mr Yushchenko also faced calls from the party of former premier Viktor Yanukovich, which has close ties with Moscow and is very strong in the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine, to call snap elections.