Yushchenko invites foe to coalition talks

UKRAINE:President Viktor Yushchenko has called on ally Yulia Tymoshenko and long-time enemy Viktor Yanukovich to join his party in talks on forming Ukraine's new government, casting doubt on plans to reunite the team that led the 2004 "Orange Revolution".

Analysts were unsure whether the invitation was a real peace offer to Mr Yanukovich, or an expansive but ultimately empty gesture aimed at burnishing the president's credentials as a statesman, but it was swiftly rejected by Ms Tymoshenko.

"My main goal is that Ukraine should emerge united from these elections," Mr Yushchenko said of Sunday's ballot, in which eastern and southern regions mostly voted for Mr Yanukovich's Regions Party, and the rest of the country broadly backed the president's Our Ukraine group and Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko. "We cannot get real political stability unless the three main parties agree on how the coalition and the cabinet must be formed," he said in a televised address.

With more than 99 per cent of ballots counted, the Regions Party had 34.3 per cent and its Communist Party ally 5.4; the Tymoshenko bloc had 30.8 per cent and Our Ukraine 14.2 per cent. The only other party expected to enter parliament, led by the former speaker of the house, Volodymyr Lytvyn, had almost 4 per cent, but has not revealed whom it will back.

Before and immediately after the election, Mr Yushchenko said he favoured a new alliance with Ms Tymoshenko, with whom he fell out after leading the Orange Revolution, which overturned Mr Yanukovich's fraudulent "victory" in the 2004 presidential election.

Ms Tymoshenko swiftly ruled out any co-operation with Mr Yanukovich yesterday.

"If the coalition is formed between Our Ukraine and the Regions Party, our political force will stay in the opposition," she said.

The president's offer of talks was welcomed by Mr Yanukovich, who is closer to Moscow and cooler towards the West than his main rivals.

If Mr Yushchenko were to form an alliance with his old foe, he would lose much of his dwindling credibility and probably have to face the much more popular Ms Tymoshenko in a presidential election in 2009.

"The president has decided to show that he is above the fray, that the formation of a coalition is a matter strictly for parliament with him as supreme arbiter," said Oleksander Lytvynenko of the Razumkov think tank.

"This is Yushchenko wanting to distance himself from the political fight - and dissociate himself from coalition talks."