'Orange' Leader Set to Become Ukrainian PM

Tymoshenko wins ex-rival's nod for job she lost in 2004
By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 7, 2007 11:50 AM CST
'Orange' Leader Set to Become Ukrainian PM
Orange Revolution heroine Yulia Tymoshenko, speaks with acting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who is nominated as parliament speaker by the majority coalition, in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukrainian Parliament, Kiev, Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2007. Ukraine's two pro-Western parties forged a fragile...   (Associated Press)

Two months after Ukraine's parliamentary elections and 3 years after she was sacked from the same job, Yulia Tymoshenko is expected to become prime minister on Tuesday, Reuters reports. Although a Russia-aligned party won the most seats in October's polling, the two pro-Western "Orange" parties form a larger, if contentious, bloc. If she can hold her fragile coalition together, Tymoshenko is set to return to power.

Victor Yushchenko, the president of Ukraine, was an ally of Tymoshenko during the Orange Revolution that brought them to power. But after 8 turbulent months he fired her, and Tymoshenko founded her own party. The two reconciled before the October elections, in which their two parties won a two-seat majority in parliament. (More Yulia Tymoshenko stories.)

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