(AP) – President Viktor Yushchenko pleaded with Ukraine’s opposition on Nov. 9 to give the new prime minister a chance amid disputes over next year’s budget and membership in the World Trade Organization.
He told a Cabinet meeting that Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov “had no time to do anything bad … and it’s not good to cut his wings.”
Yushchenko also called on opposition politicians to stop trying to block legislation needed for WTO membership and to adopt the proposed 2006 state budget.
He has made WTO membership by year’s end a top goal, and has said that work has accelerated under Yekhanurov, who was named to the job in September after Yushchenko dismissed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Lawmakers have shown no inclination to pass quickly the six more bills needed to qualify for WTO membership. Last week, parliament passed the 2006 budget in the first reading, but only after heated debate.
Yushchenko said that parliament and the government share responsibility for this ex-Soviet republic’s progress.
“We are in a one boat,” he said.
Parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn criticized the level of cooperation between parliament and the government.”We need to think about our relations,” he said. “As experience has shown, cooperation ended after the appointment of a new premier.”
