URL http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E4DA1130F932A05750C0A9619C8B63

DATE/ AUTHOR None	AUTHORS: Steven Lee Myers

H Standoff in Ukraine Prompts Some to Seek New Election

S1 Barely a year after parliamentary elections, Ukraine has lurched toward a new political crisis as President Viktor A. Yushchenko's support among lawmakers hemorrhages and he faces new calls to dissolve Parliament, now led by his rival, Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich.

S2 Mr. Yushchenko's beleaguered party, Our Ukraine, has organized a public protest against the parliamentary majority for Saturday, along with some of the president's erstwhile supporters who increasingly fear that the pro-Russian Mr. Yanukovich is growing too powerful.

S3 By Friday, protesters were already gathering in Kiev, the capital, as were counterprotesters loyal to Mr. Yanukovich.

S4 Those who want Parliament disbanded complain that with the lawmakers and the president at odds, the country has been at a stalemate.
S5 One result is that the country has been unable to pass anticorruption and banking laws to speed Ukraine's economic growth.

S6 ''If there is a president in the country, if the president loves Ukraine and respects Ukrainians, if the president understands all the dangers facing the country, he will either dissolve the Parliament or lose the remaining support of society,'' Yulia V. Tymoshenko, once Mr. Yushchenko's prime minister, said Friday, the Russian news agency Interfax reported from Kiev.

S7 Mr. Yushchenko, who leans toward the West, became president after the ''Orange Revolution'' in the fall of 2004 overturned a fraudulent vote that initially gave the presidency to Mr. Yanukovich.
S8 A renewed confrontation between the men has been brewing almost from the day last August that Mr. Yanukovich formed enough of a coalition in Parliament to become prime minister.

S9 Now awkwardly sharing power, the two men have agreed on some broad economic and social policies but have differed sharply over foreign policy, especially Mr. Yushchenko's goal of having Ukraine join NATO and the European Union.

S10 Under Mr. Yanukovich's leadership, Mr. Yushchenko's opponents have carved away at the president's already diminished powers.
S11 Parliament dismissed his foreign minister, for example, and refused to confirm his first choice as a successor.

S12 In the past week, some of Mr. Yushchenko's supporters in Parliament have defected to Mr. Yanukovich's coalition, most prominently Anatoly K. Kinakh, who was a leader of Our Ukraine and the president's former national security adviser.
S13 Mr. Yanukovich's Party of Regions now leads a coalition with 260 of the 450 seats and boasts that it may soon have 300, a veto-proof two-thirds majority.

S14 On Thursday, Mr. Yushchenko denounced the coalition, saying it no longer represented the results of last year's parliamentary elections, in which no party won a majority.
S15 He said the law forbids elected lawmakers to switch parties and called Parliament's actions unconstitutional.
S16 His remarks were his clearest suggestion yet that he may call new elections.

S17 Supporters of a new vote hope that Mr. Yushchenko and his former allies in the Orange Revolution will be able to put aside their differences and join together to win a majority.

