Turning the pages back...

February 18, 2004

It was merely a year ago, on February 18, 2004, that the political parties and factions that comprise the Verkhovna Rada majority signed a political agreement to support a single candidate in the October 31, 2004, presidential election in Ukraine. The 13 leaders, including Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who also headed the Party of Regions, agreed to form a coalition for both the October presidential election and the parliamentary elections in 2006. They also pledged to continue to support passage of a controversial law on political reform that would amend the Constitution of Ukraine.

"Today we have begun the establishment of a wide coalition of democratic powers, which I am sure will become the core of a larger unity movement throughout Ukraine," explained Mr. Yanukovych at the outset of a press conference after the signing. Prime Minister Yanukovych said that because the coalition had been able to hold together for more than a year under difficult conditions - all the while showing its ability to find compromise - he was optimistic that it would remain united through October and beyond.

National Deputy Leonid Kravchuk, head of the Social Democratic (United) faction and a prominent leader of the majority coalition, said he believed a specific candidate for president would be named during an upcoming forum of the majority forces.

Four oppositionist political groupings within the Verkhovna Rada, the Socialist, Communist, Our Ukraine and Yulia Tymoshenko factions did not sign the document.

Source: "Rada majority to support single presidential candidate," by Roman Woronowycz, Kyiv Press Bureau, The Ukrainian Weekly, February 22, 2004, Vol. LXXII, No. 8.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 13, 2005, No. 7, Vol. LXXIII

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