Ukraine's PM backs new law strengthening president's powers

Quote: Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko voiced support Sunday for legislation strengthening the powers of the president with whom she has been at loggerheads, saying her government backed the law for the sake of democratic unity.
"At the president's request, our political team voted for a new law on the cabinet, reducing the government's powers.. and increasing those of the president," she told a press conference.
"We supported (the legislation) for the sake of the unity of the democratic coalition."
President Viktor Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were allies who led the 2004 Orange Revolution that peacefully overturned a rigged election originally awarded to a Moscow-backed candidate.
But relations between the two have since cooled.
Nevertheless on Sunday Tymoshenko defended the unity of the democratic coalition with Yushchenko's party, saying she hoped the new arrangements would "harmonise our activity and provide the government with the possibility to work".
On Saturday Yushchenko approved the new legislation strengthening his authority over the government by allowing him to install pro-Western figures in key posts.
It gives him the power to block prime ministerial candidates and leaves the nomination of foreign and defence ministers in his hands alone.
The law, overturning a 2007 decree which clipped the president's wings and asserted governmental control through parliament, won the votes of 245 pro-Western members loyal to Yushchenko -- 19 more than the legal minimum.
After things cooled between them, Yushchenko dismissed Tymoshenko as prime minister in 2005, and political analysts said the split between Ukraine's two most prominent politicians appeared to be worsening because both were likely to contest a presidential poll in 2009 or 2010.

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