Ukraine's Tymoshenko calls for liberal coalition

KIEV - Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko scored a triumph in parliamentary elections on Sunday, saying "Orange Revolution" liberals could close ranks to form a coalition and keep a pro-Russian party in opposition.

Tymoshenko emerged as the star when exit polls, while giving the largest number of votes to pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich's party, showed her bloc had easily taken second place.

The outcome was a double humiliation for President Viktor Yushchenko, who defeated Yanukovich in a presidential poll re-run after December 2004 street protests and who later fell out with Tymoshenko, his former Orange Revolution comrade.

Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party trailed in third place, the exit polls showed.

Tymoshenko, sporting her trademark braid hairstyle, said three liberal parties, her own Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Our Ukraine and the Socialists, had won enough votes to form a majority and that a coalition deal was "practically ready".

She implied she would be back as prime minister to head the coalition -- a shot aimed at Yushchenko, who sacked her from that job last September after infighting in "Orange" ranks over corruption charges.

"In this coalition agreement ... it is said that the political group holding first place has the right to propose a candidate to head the government," she told a news conference.

"Our political aim will be to follow the path the country chose in the last presidential election."

The exit polls gave Yanukovich's Regions Party 27 to 31 per cent, the Tymoshenko bloc 22 to 24 per cent and the pro-Yushchenko party about 15 per cent.

Disillusionment over splits in the "Orange" team and a economic slowdown clearly contributed to the big score for Yanukovich, strong in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.

At stake is the fate of a country of 47 million, whose "Orange" leaders have been unable to deliver on promises after prising Ukraine loose from centuries of Russian domination and setting it on a course for joining the European mainstream.

Yushchenko made no immediate comment after the polls but the head of his campaign team said the president also wanted a restored "Orange" team and that he could play a decisive role.

Yanukovich also invited other parties to join a coalition.

"We are ready to take the responsibility of forming a government and we call on everybody who holds Ukraine's fate dear to join us," he told reporters.

But despite his comeback after a shattering defeat in 2004, the apparent strong showing of Tymoshenko's bloc seemed to make this an unlikely prospect.

Before the vote, many surveys had predicted Yushchenko's party would take second place comfortably, and speculation was widespread of a grand coalition with Yanukovich.

But the day belonged to the 45-year-old Tymoshenko, whose oratory electrified thousands in Kiev in the Orange Revolution.

Her strong showing effectively meant she took over as standard-bearer of the "Orange" liberals from Yushchenko and he now has little choice but to paper over differences with her.

But allowing her to be prime minister will not be easy given her interventionist views and Yushchenko's free market outlook.

True to form, she immediately played a strong populist card, saying that if she returned to power a New Year deal sharply increasing the price of imported Russian gas would be scrapped.

"Two versions are realistically possible -- either a failure to form a government and a dissolution of parliament or a government headed by Tymoshenko," said analyst Hleb Vyshlynsky, of Gfk-USM Ukraine consultancy.

Preliminary results were not expected for two to three days.

Long talks could still be on the cards to form a coalition able to command a majority in parliament that under new constitutional rules can choose the prime minister.

- REUTERS