Taras Chernovol said the demands included the election of the Supreme Rada speaker and the prime minister under parliament's regulations, and proportional representation of each party in the election of committee heads. He said the opposition wanted to control Rada committees for the budget, the fight against organized crime, monitoring of law-enforcement agencies, human rights, and the freedom of speech.
Earlier on Monday, the Party of Regions dismissed the idea of holding all-parliament roundtable talks, called for by the president to end three months of political wrangling in the ex-Soviet republic, and continued its sit-in to prevent the start of a plenary session in protest over a coalition formed by three other movements.
Viktor Yanukovych, President Viktor Yushchenko's challenger in the 2004 presidential race, said the problems that were to have been discussed by the coalition majority and the opposition at the roundtable would be better addressed through a conciliation board.
"If the 'orange' coalition is not capable of legally electing authorities, then neither round nor square table talks will be of any help to them," he said.
Following a similar move last week that paralyzed the legislature for a few days, about 15 party members of the pro-Russian party settled in the Supreme Rada Monday to stop anyone approaching the rostrum or the presidential seat. The move was a protest against a coalition deal by the "orange" trio of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine bloc, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the Socialists, and their nominations for the posts of prime minister and parliamentary speaker.
The Party of Regions gained the most seats in the Rada (186) after the March 26 elections, but was frozen out of negotiations between the three Western-leaning parties, which have an overall 243 seats.
If Ukraine's parliament fails to start work in the next three weeks, or fails to elect a prime minister and speaker, the president is entitled to dissolve it and call early elections.
