Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko sacked Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's government on Thursday for alleged corruption and loss of team spirit.

Tymoshenko accused Yushchenko on Friday of jeopardizing the country's future by firing her government and vowed to fight him as a parallel team in a parliamentary poll next year.

As Yushchenko pressed parliamentary group leaders to work with a new government under acting Prime Minister Yury Yekhanurov, analysts said much depends on which way Tymoshenko would now go.

CORRUPTION CHARGES

Yushchenko's chief-of-staff, Oleksandr Zinchenko, resigned last week and leveled charges of corruption against high-level officials, including Petro Poroshenko, head of the Security and Defense Council and a close ally of the president.

Yushchenko accepted on Thursday the resignation of Poroshenko who quit after two other top officials accused him of corruption.

Also on Thursday, Vice Prime Minister Mykola Tomenko and Olexander Turchinov, head of Ukraine's security service, submitted their resignations in a move to demonstrate innocence. The officials, who all denied corruption charges, have accused Zinchenko of splitting the government and vowed to resort to courts for justice.

GOVERNMENT INFIGHTING

Yushchenko won the general election last year thanks to the staunch support of Tymoshenko who was later appointed as the first prime minister. However, Tymoshenko has never been the favorite among Yushchenko's allies, headed by Poroshenko.

Thanks to the president's intervention, almost every key sector of the government is evenly divided between his supporters and Tymoshenko's allies, leading to an endless power struggle between political forces and low inefficiency in the government.

Yushchenko said in televised remarks Thursday that conflicts between Poroshenko and Tymoshenko "became an everyday agenda," which demonstrated the lack of "team spirit" and mutual trust among the officials.

The president said he had decided to act in the interests of both the government and the voters.

ECONOMIC WOES

The stagnant economic growth over the past half year added to the president's determination to disband the government, analysts say.

The government of Tymoshenko put forward a string of economic reform policies, such as improving the investment climate and developing a stock market, to pull the country out of the sluggish situation.

However, due to inadequate enforcement, the economic growth in the first half of the year stood at 4 percent, much lower than the expected 8 percent. Meanwhile, the official inflation rate reached 15 percent, but economic experts say inflation actually hit 30 percent.

Rising prices of oil and daily necessities including sugar and rice have sparked repeated demonstrations in front of the building of the Ukrainian government.

In a statement on Thursday, Yushchenko accused Tymoshenko of failing to carry out her duties of improving the country's economy, saying the former prime minister was busy scrambling for power and expanding her political influence in the government.

UPCOMING PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION

Under an amendment adopted last year to the Ukrainian Constitution,

the parliament will get more power from the beginning of next year. The parties that win a majority of seats in the parliament will form the government and participate in naming key posts including the prime minister.

In order to win the parliamentary poll set for next year, Yushchenko had hoped for engagement with Tymoshenko in an effort to maintain his political advantage. But his wish failed to materialize as Tymoshenko's allies were excluded from the list of candidates.

Although the former primer minister had told the press several times about her intention to resign, her support rate continued to soar. The latest poll showed that Tymoshenko's support rate was the second highest in Ukraine following that for the president.

On Friday, Tymoshenko accused Yushchenko of jeopardizing the country's future by firing her government and vowed to fight him as a parallel team in the parliamentary poll next year.

Analysts say the worst-case scenario for Yushchenko would be Tymoshenko going into opposition, and as Tymoshenko has yet to spell out her plans, the political prospect of Ukraine would remain uncertain for quite a while.

Source: Xinhua