Events moving quickly now..

NSNU have not negotiating in good faith and are not interested in any orange parliamentary coalition. They have 'put a little cross on it', as they say in Ukraine. Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz today made a big sacrifice and backed down from his long-standing demand to be proposed VR speaker, proposing only that all leading positions, from deputy of regional administrations to Prosecutor General, be distributed proportionally between the three orange coalition members .

But Anatoliy Kinakh, on behalf of NSNU, says this is still not acceptable. They are looking for 'new partners' which can only mean Yanukovych's PR, to join a grand coalition - something Yekhanurov and some others from NSNU, particularly its 'business wing' wanted from the start.

Even though NSNU have been exposed as a bunch of 'time-wasters', do they really believe that PR, the largest bloc in the new VR, who have now started a serious 'general mobilization', are going to play second fiddle to them and the President?

PR leading member Raisa Bohatyrova claimed yesterday that already 25 members from the orange forces have defected and will support PR. So, together with the Communists, they already have 231 out of 450 parliamentary votes 'in the bag', she gloated. They feel they now have the 'momentum'.

One pro-NSNU newspaper, sourcing Stanislav Byelkovsky quoted in a Latvian periodical, claims Tymoshenko is doing 'behind the scenes' deals with PR financial sponsor and VR deputy, Rinat Akhmetov. In exchange for supporting Tymoshenko's candidature for PM, Akhmetov would be allowed to add Ukraine's largest telecom company, Ukrtelekom [one of the last juicy morsels left for privatization] to his business empire. Although some NSNU deputies would not support Tymoshenko's candidature for PM, possibly 30 - 35 PR deputies would, claims Byelkovsky.

This may be just a 'spoiler', but I suspect there may be a lot of this kind of desparate jockeying by newly-elected deputies, and 'buying off' of votes going on, but ultimately PR will demand the lion's share of the top jobs in any grand coalition. Will NSNU and the President be prepared for the eventual humiliation? Amazingly, it seems that having Tymoshenko PM and Moroz VR speaker would have been an even more unpalatable scenario for them. It's like watching a train crash in slow motion..

I wonder if Yekhnurov and the rest of the NSNU negotiators will 'mess' PRU about as much a they did BYuT and the Socialists.

VR, meeting today for the first time in a while, have 'clocked off' early too, to watch events from WMschaft in Germany. A good result will put everyone in a better frame of mind.