Ukrainian President Yushchenko Orders Early Election

Ukraine was in the grip of fresh political turmoil this morning after president Viktor Yushchenko dissolved parliament last night and today ordered an early parliamentary election on December 7.

His move was widely expected. It follows the acrimonious collapse of the ruling coalition between Yushchenko's party and the bloc led by Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine's prime minister and the president's former Orange ally.

The government fell apart last month when Tymoshenko voted with the opposition Party of the Regions to strip the president of several powers. Yushchenko ordered pre-term elections after the parties failed to agree a new coalition.

The election will be the third in Ukraine in three years. Today analysts said Yushchenko's decision to call an early poll was an attempt to undermine Tymoshenko ahead of the 2010 presidential elections, which Tymoshenko is likely to win.

The two have been embroiled in a power struggle since early summer. In a brief, seven-minute TV address last night, Yushchenko heaped blame for the political crisis on Tymoshenko. He described her government as "undemocratic" and "populist".

He added bitterly: "I am convinced, deeply convinced that the democratic coalition was ruined by one thing alone - human ambition. The ambition of one person."

European and American countries will be watching the latest crisis in Ukraine with unease. The post-Soviet country has been at the forefront of western policymaking since Russia's invasion in August of Georgia, amid fears that Moscow might target it next.

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, recently travelled to Kiev to lend his support to Ukraine's Nato aspirations. He also harshly attacked the Kremlin's new imperial doctrine that it has "privileged interests" in neighbouring post-Soviet states.

Last night, however, the US's ambassador in Kiev conceded that the serial political turmoil in Ukraine made it less likely the country would be accepted into Nato's membership action program when foreign ministers from Nato countries meet to consider it in December.

The US administration has been the strongest advocate of Ukraine's Nato ambitions - in the face of skepticism from several European countries led by Germany and France. The country's internal instability could cost it Nato membership, US ambassador William Taylor said on Wednesday.

Today Tammy Lynch, a Ukraine analyst and senior fellow at Boston University, said the crisis would have a "negative impact in Crimea, where the majority of residents are Russian speaking and there have been growing calls for independence. It will allow Russia to increase its foothold in Crimea."

The early election will also rock the country's already jittery financial markets, she added. The stock market shut down yesterday as the hryvnia currency plunged to an all time low against the dollar.There would also be concerns that the crisis could disrupt the supply of gas via Ukraine to the EU, and unravel the complicated outline agreement just signed by Tymoshenko and Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow, she said. Under it Ukraine will purchase gas from Russia at below market prices for the next three years.

Today Tymoshenko's party said that the early elections would not help the president, who is widely unpopular. Opinion polls indicate that Tymoshenko and the party of regions, led by former prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, are likely to win December's pre-term election.

"We deem this step anti-constitutional and senseless," Andriy Portnov, deputy leader of the Tymoshenko bloc parliamentary faction, said of the decision to hold an early poll. He added: "What has happened was certainly provoked by the president. It is he who stands behind the coalition's break-up." He predicted: "It won't help him."