Ukraine Crisis Deepens As Parliament Dissolved

Ukraine lurched further into political crisis today as its president, Viktor Yushchenko, dissolved parliament and called for new elections.

A decree signed by Mr Yushchenko has set the stage for new parliamentary elections on May 27 - just over a year after elections in March last year - paving the way for a fresh confrontation between supporters of Mr Yushchenko and those of his bitter rival, the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich.

Mr Yushchenko assumed the presidency two-and-a-half years ago after the so-called orange revolution, when his supporters held mass protests against electoral fraud and overturned a result that had declared Mr Yanukovich president.

The rivalry between Mr Yushchenko, a pro-western leader, and Mr Yanukovich, who is favoured by Russia, reflects a divide in Ukrainian society between a Russian-speaking eastern area and the Ukrainian-speaking west. The country is split over Nato membership, and political deadlock has blocked Mr Yuschchenko's attempts at economic reform.

The US state department said in a statement: "The United States calls on all Ukrainian political leaders to take full responsibility for their supporters' actions and to maintain calm."

Despite his political humiliation in 2004, Mr Yanukovich has made a political comeback. He won the prime minister's post last August by forming a parliamentary majority with a coalition of parties and has been chipping away at the president's authority.

The current crisis follows Mr Yanukovich's success in persuading individual MPs from the opposition to join the ruling coalition, a move the president said was unconstitutional. Critics charged that in some cases the ruling coalition was attracting new members through bribes.

Mr Yanukovich's coalition has been recruiting Mr Yushchenko's allies and boasting that it would achieve a veto-proof two-thirds majority of 300 votes, a move that would further undermine presidential authority. Just last month, Mr Yanukovitch won fresh converts, notably Anatoly Kinakh, the president's former national security adviser.

In a TV address, Mr Yushchenko said his dissolution of parliament was motivated by "an acute necessity to preserve the nation, its sovereignty and territorial integrity".

Written off after Mr Yushchenko defeated him, Mr Yanukovich staged an improbable comeback in parliamentary elections in March 2006. He managed to form a coalition and became prime minister in August, leading to the power-sharing deal that collapsed yesterday.

Polls indicate that if a new election is held, the political landscape will remain largely unchanged with the balance in the new parliament likely to be roughly split between Mr Yanukovich's coalition and another led by Mr Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister.

Ms Tymoshenko, speaking at a televised late-night rally in the central square of Kiev, the capital, praised the president's decision.

"A parliament that has become steeped in corruption and started to ... behave in an anti-Ukrainian manner has no right to a political life," she declared. She called on Mr Yanukovich's supporters "not to destabilise the situation".