Viktor Yushchenko signed the new decree shortly before the Constitutional Court was expected to rule on his previous order of April 2, which set early elections for May 27. The president said he put off the election date because the government had failed to complete the arrangements for the May elections on time.
"The Ukrainian president's decree on dissolving parliament and calling early elections signed April 26 demonstrated abuse of his constitutional powers and was in violation of the Constitution," the ministry said. "Therefore, the Justice Ministry deems it necessary for the president to withdraw the decree."
Yushchenko said he had to dissolve parliament after 11 opposition members defected to the ruling pro-government coalition in late March, which he said was in circumvention of the Constitution.
The Justice Ministry rejected the president's arguments as unfounded, saying the Constitution did not stipulate any imperatives that would restrict the number of deputies allowed to join the coalition.
Yushchenko's first decree exacerbated the situation in the country, which has been locked in a political crisis caused by the confrontation between the president and parliament dominated by the premier's supporters. The ruling coalition refused to obey the order and referred it to the Constitutional Court as thousands of protesters flooded into the streets.
Impeachment threat
The Supreme Rada registered a draft resolution on impeachment Thursday, the parliamentary press service said, adding that the initiative belonged to members of the ruling coalition - the Communist Party and the Party of Regions - and those who defected from the opposition Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.
Mykola Onyshchuk, a member of the pro-presidential opposition bloc Our Ukraine, said the impeachment procedure against Yushchenko was impossible to realize for legal reasons.
"It requires a constitutional majority on the one hand, which is not in place, and a Supreme Court ruling on whether the president's actions could be classified as violations, which entail impeachment, and the court will never make such a conclusion in the current circumstances," Onyshchuk was quoted as saying by the press service of Our Ukraine.
Petro Symonenko, a Communist leader, accused President Yushchenko of readiness to resolve the ongoing political conflict by force.
"Yushchenko is taking a more radical approach, and doing his best to encourage a forceful resolution of the current conflict," Symonenko said. "I do not rule it out that the president and hawks in his secretariat might let blood be spilled."
