As soon as these five steps towards each other have been taken, Verkhovna Rada will be able to start its work and the coalition will break the stalemate, he says. “In order to reconcile, we have to sack State Property Fund head [who’s been stalling privatization cabinet’s program – Ed.] In exchange, BYUT has to rubberstamp the law on the cabinet [giving more muscle to Pres Yushchenko – Ed.] This done, we can endorse the law on the budget. Otherwise, the stand-off will lead to span elections, chaos and complete destruction of statehood,” Stetskiv warned.

Asked if the president is ready to sack SPF head as soon as VR has been unblocked, Stetskiv answered: “Yes, the president is ready. NUNS will also vote to sack SPF head, but the Rada has to be unblocked.”

“While the president is ready to take a step toward Yulia Tymoshenko, the premier has been now escalating the conflict inside the ruling coalition for the past 2 days,” Stetskiv argues. The president is for passing anti-inflation bills, but the cabinet has not submitted them to the Rada for consideration. “The premier has just cheated us all – there are no anti-inflation bills at all,” Stetskiv charges.

“There is word that BYUT and the Party of Regions want to set up a commission in the Rada to draw up a new constitution [giving more muscle to parliament and clipping president’s wings – Ed.]. It adds up to a conspiracy of 2 hitherto irreconcilable enemies, BYUT and PoR. It is an anti-Ukrainian scenario, it is a destructive scenario. This scenario has been written outside Ukraine, not by BYUT. By implementing this scenario, BYUT wants to shun responsibility for the present grave economic situation and opts for span elections to share power with PoR,” Stetskiv argued.