Wobbly NUNS-BYuT coalition

This week the head of Presidential Secretariat, Viktor Baloha, stated that the newly created orange NU-NS bloc, [Our Ukraine and Yuriy Lutsenko's People Self-defence] and BYuT plan to form a democratic majority in sixth convocation of the Verkhnovna Rada.

The bloc's leaders are to publicly sign declarations on this next week.

There are still unanswered questions on the arrangement, which could be largely resolved to as follows: The two parties could make it clear that in the event that they together gain a majority of seats in the V.R, i.e. more that 226 seats, and if BYuT's share is the greater, then Tymoshenko will be PM and lead the government. If NUNS' share is the greater then, say, Viktor Baloha [or other nominee] will be PM. Anything else will be considered as weasel words by NUNS and cast doubt on their coalition - yet again. We shall see what happens next week. Baloha's statement suggests that if a democratic majority is not achieved, then either party is free to go its own way.

Yesterday Tymoshenko announced that a referendum on the Ukrainian constitution should be held in paralled to the 30th September VR elections. More on this in English on her own website.

Yushchenko, who intends to retain as much presidential power as possible, may well have views much different to those of Tymoshenko on these matters.

Tymoshenko proposes asking the electorate nine questions: she wants to know whether they support a presidential form of administration, "by means of which the President is elected by the entire nation", or a parliamentary form of administration - "according to which the presidency is abolished, the government is assigned by the VR, and the prime minister is head of state".

Clearly there has been no co-ordination on this referendum between the two orange partners, and it well may be just a p.r. stunt. The NUNS-BYuT coalition could finish up as a pantomime horse..