Ukraine's Tymoshenko to get PM job back

President Viktor Yushchenko will nominate former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to form a new government, eight months after the fiery advocate of Ukraine's Orange Revolution was sacked, a top official said yesterday.

Mr Yushchenko's chief of staff, Oleh Rybachuk, said the President would present his proposal to Parliament on Monday and hoped a coalition government would take shape within 10 days.

"The President is to put forward the candidature of Yulia Tymoshenko as Prime Minister," Mr Rybachuk told a news conference a day after three parties backing the 2004 "Orange Revolution" agreed to form a coalition.

Mr Tymoshenko's nomination had never been in doubt once the three groups - Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party, Mr Tymoshenko's bloc and the smaller Socialists - had agreed this week to form a coalition after three months of divisive negotiations. After announcing the coalition deal on Thursday, Mr Tymoshenko pledged "reasonable and predictable" economic policies. She also sparked a new row with powerful neighbour Russia by demanding a review of a gas deal imposing steep price increases for imports.

Mr Tymoshenko said yesterday that she and other party leaders discussed the new administration with the president.

"We agreed that we are to draw up all necessary documents and on Tuesday or Wednesday we will form parliament's senior bodies and start the voting procedures," she told reporters.

Roman Bezsmertny of Our Ukraine said his party would decide on a candidate for parliamentary speaker - Petro Poroshenko, Mr Tymoshenko's fiercest critic during her eight months in office, or industrialist Anatoly Kinakh.