KYIV. June 5 (Interfax-AVN) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has asked the international community to support his efforts to ensure democracy in Ukraine.
"I am once again asking the international community to support the democratic processes in Ukraine," Yushchenko said, while meeting with the ambassadors of the G-7 countries and Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and the head of the European Commission office in Ukraine in Kyiv on Friday.
Yushchenko said he is making this request because the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the Party of Regions over the past week "threw down all their masks in the negotiations" on the creation of a parliamentary coalition to "initiative changes to the Constitution."
Yushchenko said the coalition has reached an agreement to make Yulia Tymoshenko prime minister for ten years and give the parliament the right to elect the president. He also said the coalition has made a decision to extend the powers of local self-government bodies by one year and the powers of the parliament by three years.
"All these steps can be called unconstitutional, and they are essentially an anti-constitutional coup," he said.
Yushchenko said he believes these initiatives will damage all the democratic achievements of Ukraine and promised to prevent illegal presidential elections by the parliament.