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KIEV: Ukraine will hold snap parliamentary elections on December 7, President Viktor Yushchenko announced Thursday, after the collapse of the ruling pro-West coalition.
In a decree posted on his official website, Yushchenko "set parliamentary elections for December 7, 2008."
Yushchenko on Wednesday announced the dissolution of parliament in a televised address after a failed bid to re-establish a coalition with his pro-West partner Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
The crisis has raised concerns in the West that pro-Moscow parties may come to power in the eastern European country of 47 million, casting doubt on Kiev's bid to strengthen ties with Washington and Brussels.
Yushchenko said he would dissolve parliament in a televised speech late Wednesday that also included sharp words for a fellow pro-Western politician, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a former ally turned bitter arch-rival.
"I am deeply convinced that it was human ambition that destroyed the democratic coalition -- one person's ambition, lust for power, differences in values and putting personal interests ahead of national ones," Yushchenko said, referring to Tymoshenko.
The prime minister's allies in turn blamed Yushchenko for the coalition's disintegration.
"We consider this act to be anti-constitutional and senseless," the deputy chief of the parliament faction of Tymoshenko's party, Andrei Portnov, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
"What happened today was 100-percent provoked by the president, who is the one standing behind the coalition's collapse," Portnov said.
Yushchenko and Tymoshenko have had a love-hate relationship since 2004, when they were inseparable for the so-called Orange Revolution to overturn the rigged election of pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych as president.
Their pro-Western parties won a narrow majority in September 2007 polls, though the largest single share of votes went to the pro-Moscow Regions Party, which has strong support in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.
But the coalition fell apart this September when Yushchenko's party pulled out in protest at Tymoshenko's decision to support a bid by the pro-Russian opposition to reduce the president's powers.
"The main cause of the political crisis in Ukraine... is the conflict between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko," said Russian political analyst Stanislav Belkovski.
Tensions between the pair deepened during the Russian-Georgian war in August, with Yushchenko supporting Tbilisi and charging Tymoshenko with "treason" for her more neutral stance.
Analysts said the main aim of the president's decision to dissolve parliament and order new elections was to eliminate Tymoshenko.
With that move, "the president began to his address core problem: to remove the power of Yulia Tymoshenko," the influential daily Ukrainska Pravda said Thursday.
Yushchenko and Tymoshenko are likely rivals in the next presidential elections set for late 2009 or early 2010, as is Yanukovych, head of the pro-Moscow Regions Party.
December's vote could also impact Ukraine's bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has been spearheaded by Yushchenko in the face of strong opposition from Russia.
Last month Tymoshenko said the crisis had "considerably weakened" Kiev's bid to join the military alliance.
Although the ruling coalition has collapsed, Tymoshenko's government will remain in place until a new one can be formed.
"There is no need to reshuffle the executive authorities," Interfax quoted Yushchenko as saying.
- AFP/yb
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