Electoral Panorama / Panorama Electoral

Less than nine months after coming to power, Ukraine's fragile, pro-western coalition government has collapsed, following months of wrangling between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. While the latter is expected to remain as caretaker head of government, she has only 30 days to cobble a new coalition cabinet; otherwise, the president may call an early parliamentary election - Ukraine's third in as many years.

The ruling coalition's collapse was triggered by differences between the president and the prime minister over support for Georgia during its recent conflict with Russia, which in due course led Ukraine's Supreme Council (Parliament) to pass laws curtailing the president's powers; Yushchenko regards these laws - which were adopted with the support of the opposition, pro-Russian Party of Regions - as a parliamentary "coup."

The clash between Yushchenko and Tymonshenko is by no means the first - three years ago, he fired her and the entire cabinet on grounds of incompetence, following a period of increasingly bitter in-fighting - and it's unlikely to be the last: Mrs. Tymoshenko is widely expected to run in the next presidential election (to be held in 2009 or 2010), and opinion polls have her in a tight race with Party of Regions leader Vyktor Yanukovych, while President Yushchenko is trailing far behind.

Ukraine holds an early parliamentary election, at Global Economy Matters covers the parliamentary election of September 2007 in the Eastern European country, and includes a comprehensive review of political developments in Ukraine since the former Soviet republic declared its independence in 1991.

Update

On October 8, 2008, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko dissolved the Supreme Council and called an early parliamentary election, which will be held next December 7. However, Prime Minister Tymoshenko's Bloc subsequently filed a lawsuit to stop the election, and on Saturday, October 11, Kiev's District Administrative Court suspended the presidential decree that dissolved Parliament and called the early election. Meanwhile, President Yushchenko insists the order has no authority since he fired the judge before he handed down the ruling, and the matter is now in the hands of Kiev's Appeals Court.

The political tug-of-war between President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Tymoshenko comes in the middle of a global financial crisis, and as Edward Hugh writes on Global Economy Matters, Ukraine Wobbles As The Financial Ground Beneath It Trembles.