Tymoshenko seeks early elections

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Ukraine's revived Orange Coalition will press for early elections in a bid to halt Russia's growing influence and control over the country's vital energy assets, opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko said in an interview yesterday.

Mrs. Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and key figure in the pro-Western Orange Revolution street protests of December 2004, said Ukraine's sovereignty and hopes for better relations with the West are in jeopardy if the government of pro-Moscow Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych serves out its full term to 2011.

"If this government is in power until then, there would be nothing left of a democratic Ukraine," she said, speaking through an interpreter with editors and reporters at The Washington Times. "The territory would still exist, but it would not be Ukraine any longer."

Mrs. Tymoshenko's party and the party of pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko signed a new deal over the weekend to cooperate in parliament, seeking to end a disastrous feud among the Orange Revolution allies that enabled Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Moscow party to reclaim power in August 2006.

Mrs. Tymoshenko, considered a front-runner among reformists for the 2009 presidential vote, said the reunited pro-reform parties will push for early parliamentary elections, although the move faces both political and constitutional hurdles.

On a high-profile U.S. visit that includes meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mrs. Tymoshenko said the United States must speak out for Ukraine despite a full foreign-policy plate that includes Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and other pressing crises.

She noted there was "disillusionment" in Washington about backsliding in Ukraine since her coalition was propelled to power in 2005 by a wave of street protests that became known as the Orange Revolution because of the orange flags and banners carried by the protesters.

But, she said, "a country as large and influential as your own has to lead this kind of work. Your country does not have the right to be fatigued about Ukraine's future."

Mr. Yanukovych, whose tainted win in the 2004 presidential election sparked the Orange Revolution, has engineered an abrupt about-face in Ukrainian policy since his political comeback last summer.

With a power base in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east, the prime minister has put a hold on Ukraine's efforts to join NATO, dismissed Mr. Yushchenko's pro-Western foreign minister, and signed an accord tightly linking Ukraine's economy to those of Russia and Belarus.