So after 3 months of squabbling the Orange Coalition is back on. But for how long?

The quick details by the way are; that Yulia Tymoshenko will be Prime Minister, Yuriy Yekhanurov, no wait Roman Bezsmertny, oh hold on, maybe Petro Poroshenko will be Speaker of Parliament. Yes it seems certain forces are trying to mess things up from the offset.

One of Tymoshenko’s previous demands had been that Poroshenko, the man with murky rumours swirling around his head, would not hold the powerful Speakers post. In fact this morning one of her Bloc’s spokespeople confirmed this, with former P.M. Yekhanurov set to take the lead in Parliament. Now one faction in the Our Ukraine bloc has said it wants Petro to be their man in the Verkhovna Rada.

It’s this sort of squabbling that means any Orange Coalition seems unstable at best.

Things look even worse if Yanukovych’s earlier comments are to be believed. Speaking this week the former rival of President Yushchenko said he would gather defectors from Our Ukraine, the Socialists and BYT (Bloc Tymoshenko) and form his own majority. This is quite possible, given the anti-NATO stance of the Socialists, and the big business ties of Our Ukraine.

However all this begs one question: If these people have been successfully courted by Yanukovych, will they now go back to supporting an Orange Coalition?

It seems doubtful, and thus the ‘Democratic’ team may fall short of the necessary votes to form a government. If that is to occur, Yushchenko will either have to dissolve Parliament (in which case Our Ukraine may not even be re-elected) or accept Yanukovych as P.M. In the latter scenario Yushchenko’s position would be extremely weak, with some of his party members under the wings of the Party of Regions, and the President unable to get ‘his men’ into Ministerial positions.

Hold tight, the mess of the last 3 months hasn’t been cleaned up just yet…..