Ukraine’s ruling pro-Western coalition has officially collapsed, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament says.
President Viktor Yushchenko has been involved in a long-running dispute with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
The president’s Our Ukraine bloc left the coalition earlier thismonth. Parliament now has 30 days to try to form a new rulingcoalition.
If those efforts fail, Mr Yushchenko can dissolve parliament and call a snap election.
The Our Ukraine party pulled out of the coalitionon 3 September after the Tymoshenko Bloc sided with the pro-Moscowopposition Party of Regions to pass several laws that Mr Yushchenko sawas a threat to his presidential powers.
Mr Yushchenko and Ms Tymoshenko led the 2004 Orange Revolution, whichoverturned the fraudulent presidential election victory of a pro-Moscow**candidate, Viktor Yanukovych. But since then the two former allies havebecome bitter rivals, vying for power ahead of the 2010 presidentialelection.
**Fraudulent? Not so fast.
The four foundations involved included three funded by the U.S.government: The National Endowment for Democracy, which receives itsmoney directly from Congress; the Eurasia Foundation, which receivesmoney from the State Department, and the Renaissance Foundation,part of a network of charities funded by billionaire George Soros thatreceives money from the State Department. Other countries involvedincluded Great Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, Norway,Sweden and Denmark. –Ed.