KIEV, January 12 (RIA Novosti) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said Thursday that he had withdrawn from a memorandum of cooperation with the political opposition signed in September 2005.
The deal was signed with Viktor Yanukovich, leader of the Party of Regions and Yushchenko's main rival in the 2004 presidential campaign.
The disputed elections incited mass protests in Kiev, which brought Yushchenko and his supporters to power.
Yushchenko began seeking cooperation with the opposition in a bid to deter a political crisis and an economic collapse following a split in his government and the dismissal of Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, once his main ally. The parties to the memorandum pledged to reform the political system, and hold democratic elections without resorting to the administrative resource, which is when the authorities using their position to achieve their own ends.
The president said the Party of Regions had breached the agreement by supporting, January 10, the no-confidence vote against the government. It had been criticized for failing to settle the gas dispute with Russia, which turned off natural gas supplies for several days in early January.
The vote was backed by 250 of the Rada's 450 members. However, the president and prime minister condemned the move as unconstitutional.
"It was the betrayal of the nation's political and moral interests," the president said.
The political forces behind the decision - Yuliya Tymoshenko's bloc, parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn's bloc, the Party of Regions, and the Social Democratic Party - sought to provoke instability in the country, the president said.
