KIEV, July 7 (RIA Novosti) - Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine's former prime minister, said Friday the "orange" coalition majority in parliament had ceased to exist and declared the Supreme Rada illegitimate.
"Until a [new] coalition is formed, all parliamentary activities will be illegitimate," Tymoshenko said.
The coalition formed June 22 by Tymoshenko's eponymous bloc, pro-presidential Our Ukraine grouping, and the Socialist Party in effect collapsed, when Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz was elected Supreme Rada speaker late Thursday. He occupied the post in 1994-1998.
Tymoshenko's bloc and Our Ukraine members did not participate in the vote, accusing the Socialists of breaching an agreement with the two other Western-leading factions that had a provision to elect a candidate from Our Ukraine bloc as a speaker.
The Rada only resumed work Thursday after the opposition Party of Regions ended a nine-day blockade of the rostrum in protest against the allocation of portfolios by the coalition and reached a compromise with it.
The Party of Regions, which won the largest share of the March 26 parliamentary vote, said Moroz's election as parliamentary speaker had drastically changed the balance of political forces in the Rada.
Now, the Party of Regions (186 deputies), the Communist Party (21 deputies), and the Socialist Party (33 deputies) can form a new coalition majority, although the Socialists have rejected this possibility so far.
"Now the president has to decide on a parliamentary coalition and use his right to disband parliament if he thinks it [the coalition] does not exist," Tymoshenko said.
The Rada is to form the government by July 22. After this deadline the president is entitled to dissolve legislature and call new elections, though President Viktor Yushchenko has already warned that holding new elections could be too costly.
