KIEV, January 10 (RIA Novosti) - The speaker of Ukraine's lower house of parliament had no right to hold a vote on the government's dismissal, Yuriy Yekhanurov, the prime minister who was sacked earlier in the day, said Tuesday.
"According to procedural norms, [Speaker Volodymyr] Lytvyn had no right to put the issue up for vote, but he did," Yekhanurov said, commenting on the parliament's decision to dismiss his government.
The acting premier said the parliament's motion created a "legal vacuum," because nobody had had the right to dismiss the cabinet.
"Lytvyn knew what he was doing," Yekhanurov said, adding that "no legal consequences [of the dismissal] can be expected."
Yekhanurov said he and the government would continue working but with the word "acting" before their titles, while their international contacts would have to be reduced significantly.
The acting prime minister, who was appointed to the premiership in September, said he was confident that his government would remain in power until parliamentary elections in spring. Only the new parliament will be entitled to appoint a new cabinet under the current constitutional reform seeking to turn Ukraine into a parliamentary republic.
Yekhanurov also said that the government would continue to draft the Russian-Ukrainian intergovernmental protocol for 2006 that would extend the expired 2001 gas agreement between the two countries, regardless of who would be the signatories to the document.
Yekhanurov also said the dismissal would have a positive impact on the parliamentary election campaign, as it would increase people's sympathy with the "victims."
Commenting on today's developments in Ukraine, Russia's senior parliamentarian Konstantin Kosachev said it was a serious blow aimed at President Viktor Yushchenko.
"It is not so much a blow at the government but rather at the Ukrainian president, as he has lost another pillar," Kosachev said.
Another Russian parliamentarian, Sergei Antufyev, a senior member of the committee for contacts with the former Soviet republics, put the dismissal down to the cabinet's "unprofessional and short-sighted" policy. He cited the gas shortages in the country in the first days of 2006, and the "unproductive" gas talks with Russia.
