Important, the expert maintains, is that snap parliamentary elections will open the way for an early presidential election. “There is no doubt that opting for snap elections to VR, BYUT will lavish a barrage of criticism on Yushchenko to deal the last blow to his political image. Debunking myths around the incumbent is already under way. Take the issue of poisoning [NUNS David Zhvania, a former buddy of Yushchenko, said recently that the president had not been poisoned]. Many Tymoshenko insiders, notably, her adviser Hudyma, have declared that there will be an early presidential election soon,” A. Yermolayev stressed.

If snap elections do take place, Ukraine will be a loser, “When the political reform has stalled, when we live without a budget, the risks of Ukraine’s uncontrolled entry in the WTO are growing as we are unable to pursue a balanced agricultural policy. The country is in a snafu. Financial speculators are rubbing their hands. Since Ukraine’s financial market is heated by anti-inflationary monetary moves, it is very lucrative for speculative capital to keep the hryvnia exchange rate in check. Some banks with ties to the authorities have capitalized on exchange rate fluctuations and hryvnia strengthening. This is all elements of a bigger play.”

As stressed by the expert, coalition members would never accept that, in fact, there is no coalition per se. “Coalition leaders use various interpretations of the law to prove that the coalition continues to exist and the cabinet is legible. On the other hand, PoR, the Lytvyn bloc and Communists spare no efforts to show that there is no coalition. They have even stopped to vote for the bills tabled by their own members – to prove that the coalition cannot muster a majority. This kind of situation, spurs coalition leaders and primarily the cabinet into looking for radical way-outs of the present stalemate. One of the solutions is to start beating the drums for snap elections. The recent pot-taking at Yushchenko and his secretariat for misappropriating funds, using planes for private purposes as well as Tymoshenko accusations, based on audit materials, of Yanukovych government of grand larceny – all these developments fit into a single pattern – the desire to score political points and bring about a situation similar to the 2007 one on the eve of the early elections, A. Yermolayev added.

Andry Yermolayev is skeptical about the chances of forming a broad coalition in VR. PoR and the Lytvyn bloc will not stop their efforts to build up a new coalition, he opines. ”Under the present circumstances, one can speak only about the coalition between PoR, the Lytvyn bloc and the majority of Our Ukraine, if the latter breaks away from the present coalition. However, the emergence of such a new coalition is very unlikely,” he said. Against this backdrop, it seems wrong to demand a report by the cabinet, something PoR is pushing ahead with. “There is no budget, no privatization program, no clear indicators of Ukraine’s social and economic condition. We have only financial speculators, $6 billion in surplus budgetary revenues which cannot be channeled into the economy because of moribund VR, shortfalls in funding science, education, the army and local governments. All this is detrimental to the coalition’s and cabinet’s image.

That is why, all the harsh criticism of the president and Yanukovych as well as admitting the possibility of snap elections is BYUT’s and the cabinet’s encounter battle,” Yermolayev concluded.