On The Verge Of An Orange Coalition.

The Tymoshenko bloc, Our Ukraine and the Socialists finished negotiations on a coalition agreement last night in a meeting presided over by President Yushchenko. The key elements are Yulia Tymoshenko as premier, Yuri Yekhanurov as speaker. However, Our Ukraine leaders said they can not sign until they are authorized by their bloc’s political council, and since tomorrow is the anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the formal announcement will have to wait until Friday. According to one unsourced report, the Tymoshenko bloc gets ten ministries including finance and energy; Our Ukraine gets eight including interior and justice (plus probably defense and foreign affairs, which are nominated by the president); and the Socialists get three: transport, industry and education. The report didn’t say who gets agriculture, but apparently not the Socialists. Concorde Capital: As we predicted, the president has weighed in and made the deal. But until at least 226 MPs put their signatures on the coalition agreement, we can’t be certain it will hold. Notably absent from last night’s meeting was Petro Poroshenko or any representative of the “Orange Oligarchs”, who appeared to be very happy when last month’s tentative agreement to make Tymoshenko premier fell apart. We suspect negotiations are continuing within Our Ukraine over particular ministries. Even if the coalition agreement gets enough signatures, there would still be one more chance for Blue-leaning Orange MPs to foil the deal by not voting for Tymoshenko’s confirmation.