KIEV, July 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine's prime minister has
launched what promises to be a bitter election campaign that
could divide pro-Western parties and complicate their efforts to
fight pro-Russian rebels in the country's east.
Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, a key interlocutor of the
West during months of turmoil, announced on Thursday he would
quit, saying parliament was betraying Ukraine's army and people
by blocking reforms supported by Western backers.
His move, following the exit of two parties from the ruling
coalition, amounted to the start of a campaign for seats in a
legislature still packed with former allies of pro-Russian
president Viktor Yanukovich, ousted by protests in February.
"History will not forgive us," Yatseniuk told parliament on
Thursday, in what analysts said was the first campaign speech
for the party led by Yulia Tymoshenko, a rival of President
Petro Poroshenko, who was elected to replace Yanukovich in May.
Pro-Western political forces in Ukraine have been bitterly
divided almost continuously since the country won independence
with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Any further divisions will likely weaken Kiev's attempt to
counter Russia's reassertion of control over the former Soviet
arena, realised most dramatically when Moscow annexed Crimea
from Ukraine in March, and they may also complicate talks with
governments which lost citizens in last week's downing of a
Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine.
Analysts said Yatseniuk's resignation - which has yet to be
approved by parliament - would allow his party to criticise
government policy during the election campaign.
"This resignation means that the election campaign has begun
for all political forces," said Yuri Yakymenko, an analyst at
the Razumkov think tank. "He suggested unpopular laws, but the
Rada (parliament) did not support him. They threw it back at him
and now he's throwing it back at them."
The Rada will now meet for an emergency session on Thursday,
July 31, to discuss an investigation into the Malaysian plane
crash and a vote of confidence for Yatseniuk as well as the
budget and other legal amendments he had requested, a statement
on Poroshenko's website said late on Friday.
"The collapse of the coalition ... should not paralyse the
work of the parliament and is no basis for the dismissal of the
government," the statement said, adding that Poroshenko hoped to
continue working with Yatseniuk and his government.
HIGH-RISK STRATEGY
Abandoning his post at a time when Ukraine is struggling to
finance a war against pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine and
to pay state workers their regular salaries could be a high risk
strategy for Yatseniuk.
Government and finance officials have warned that the budget
only has enough money to finance the army until Aug. 1 and some
have criticised the government for failing to properly feed or
equip soldiers in the field.
An aide to Poroshenko, Oleksander Danilyuk, said the
resignation should not hurt what Kiev calls its "anti-terrorist
operation" against rebels in eastern Ukraine.
European Union ambassadors reached a preliminary agreement
on Friday to push ahead with tougher economic sanctions against
Russia following the downing of the Malaysian airliner in an
area held by the separatists, who they say are backed by Russia.
A spokesman for Ukraine's Security Council said 13 soldiers
had been killed in the last 24 hours, taking the total death
toll to 325 since the start of fighting against the rebels who
want independence for the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
In the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, witnesses said artillery
fire could be heard from the direction of the airport for a
third day on Friday. There were few people on the streets.
Local health officials said 14 people had been killed in the
last 24 hours in the Donetsk region.
Northwest of the rebels' second stronghold of Luhansk, Kiev
said it had taken the town of Lysychansk.
The war will be central to the campaign and Yatseniuk needs
distance from government policy to form a campaign in opposition
to Poroshenko's leadership.
Poroshenko, a pro-Western businessman who has been in
various governments over the years, comfortably won the May
presidential election, pushing Tymoshenko, a former prime
minister jailed under Yanukovich, into distant second place.
Tymoshenko has seen her personal ratings and those of her
party slip since she was imprisoned for abuse of office and she
hopes Yatseniuk can help their party recover.
Ukraine's most popular political group is now the populist
Radical Party, led by Oleh Lyashko, and the Udar (Punch) party
of former boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko runs third in the
opinion polls. Tymoshenko's party is second.
(additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Gabriela Baczynska
in Kiev, Aleksander Vasovic in Donetsk, writing by Elizabeth
Piper, editing by Philippa Fletcher and Gareth Jones)
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