KIEV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian parliament ousted the government of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in a no-confidence vote today, dealing a final blow to the leadership of the pro-Western Orange Revolution and leaving her to lead the opposition in parliament.
The vote followed weeks of shifting alliances in the parliament after the pro-Western Tymoshenko lost her bid for the presidency to Kremlin-friendly Viktor Yanukovych.
Yanukovych has moved quickly to consolidate power, and secured a major victory as the no-confidence resolution passed with 243 votes in the 450-seat chamber.
The parliament now has 30 days to form a new governing coalition. It is expected to coalesce around Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, and would then be able to put forward a new prime minister.
If no new coalition is formed, Yanukovych will be able to disband parliament and call early elections.
Addressing the chamber ahead of the vote, Tymoshenko said she would embrace her new role as an opposition leader, and her speech showed a level of fervor that was absent during the tumultuous weeks following her election defeat.
She said her new goal will be to hold Yanukovych and his team to account for every decision they make.
“We will protect Ukraine from this new calamity that has befallen her,” she said.
Tymoshenko’s governing “Orange” coalition dissolved Tuesday after it was unable to prove the minimum 226-seat majority in parliament. The coalition, formed in December 2008, was loosely centered on the political ideals of the Orange Revolution, a series of massive street protests in 2004 led by former President Viktor Yushchenko and Tymoshenko.
Those protests against vote fraud resulted in the Supreme Court overturning Yanukovych’s election victory in 2004. Yushchenko, a reformer who wanted closer integration with the West, won a revote. Tymoshenko became his prime minister.
But relations between the two deteriorated significantly and led to near-paralysis of the government as the country staggered through the global economic downturn.
In Wednesday’s vote, seven of Tymoshenko’s own party members voted to remove her, but she will still command the second largest faction in parliament.
Before the vote, the leaders of Yanukovych’s party lambasted Tymoshenko for failing to fend off the effects of the global financial crisis, which shrank Ukraine’s economy by 15 percent last year.
“For the period of her haphazard policymaking, the state has suffered the deepest social and economic crisis that Ukraine has not known for 20 years. We did not see any anti-crisis program from Tymoshenko,” said Mykola Azarov, the deputy head of the Party of Regions, which has named him as a candidate for the prime minister’s post.
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