Ukraine prez vows moves to guarantee free poll

Kiev, Apr 29: President Viktor Yushchenko, determined to hold an early parliamentary election despite resistance from the prime minister, vowed today to reveal moves soon to ensure the poll took place in proper conditions.

''I will soon announce decisions that will guarantee the election takes place in a calm and appropriate manner,'' Yushchenko told tens of thousands of people during an unexpected appearance at a rally backing Ukraine's opposition.

The pro-Western Yushchenko has long been at odds with Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and the majority in parliament backing him. He issued the second of two decrees this week dissolving the chamber and calling a new election for late June.

It was not immediately clear what measures the president might take to enforce his decree. Yanukovich, his rival from the mass 2004 ''Orange Revolution'' protests that swept him to power, has opposed the president's decree and proposed that simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections be held.

The president appeared alongside former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who backed the president during the 2004 upheavals but later fell out with him for a time. Today, he embraced her at length during the rally.

He blamed parliament for the crisis gripping the ex-Soviet state and pledged to do whatever was necessary to ensure a new vote to the chamber took place fairly and without disruption.

''The election will be honest and democratic with an appropriate level of organisation and international observers present. You will be able to express your will freely and honestly,'' he said in an appeal to Ukraine's 47 million people.

''I have sufficient means to ensure the preparation and staging of these elections. I will overcome any criminal sabotage. Any failure to act will be brought to account.''

PM Wants Fresh Talks

Yanukovich had earlier issued a call for fresh talks and was less forthright in calling for simultaneous elections. Any such decision could be reached through a political deal, he said.

''If we sit down and come to the conclusion that elections are truly necessary, then such a decision will be taken,'' he told a briefing.

''But the approach must be different. This must be done not on the basis of the constitution, but on the basis of political consultations and an agreement.'' He demanded an immediate end to ''pressure'' he said had been exerted on courts, election officials and the security forces.

Yanukovich's allies have asked the Constitutional Court to rule on the legality of the latest decree. The court had been considering the earlier decree, now considered annulled.

The rivals differ on the future path to be taken by Ukraine.

Yushchenko sees eventual membership of NATO and the European Union as a key policy plank. Yanukovich, beaten by Yushchenko in the re-run of a rigged 2004 election, is closer to Moscow.

Yanukovich, who was appointed prime minister after his party came first in the last parliamentary poll, barely a year ago, told NATO officials within weeks that low public support for the alliance in Ukraine ruled out fast-track membership.

Yushchenko rejects any notion of a new presidential poll. He dissolved parliament on the grounds that Yanukovich, who controls 260 of 450 votes in the chamber, was illegally enticing his allies to join the governing coalition.

Unlike 2004, when the West backed Yushchenko over the rigged vote, the European Union and United States have not taken sides.

Reuters>