After Ukrainian President Yushchenko disbanded the government of Yulia Tymoshenko, he appointed Yuriy Yekhanurov as the new prime minister. However, in order to become installed permanently, the Verkhovna Rada must approve him by majority vote. Well, it looks like that won’t be happening.

(AP) – The Ukrainian parliament on Sept. 20 rejected the candidacy of acting Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov.

Yekhanurov won only 223 votes, three less than he needed to be named to the job. President Viktor Yushchenko had tapped Yekhanurov to replace his Orange Revolution ally, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whom he fired on Sept. 8.

The defeat was a major blow for Yushchenko, who came to the parliament session hall to plead with lawmakers to accept his choice, warning that to say no would be to support those trying to destabilize this ex-Soviet republic.

But Yushchenko failed to win the support of Ukraine’s opposition parties and those factions now loyal to Tymoshenko, whom many Ukrainians see as the heroine of last year’s mass protests.

Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn frowned as the vote count was read out. Officials have said that, if Yekhanurov failed to win enough votes, they would persist with negotiations.

Yushchenko has never had a majority of aligned deputies in the first place, as parliamentary elections won’t be until 2006. So the Rada is still full of pro-Kuchma cronies, and the constantly pro-Yushchenko bunch only equals 155 deputies from “Our Ukraine (77), Tymoshenko????????s bloc (39), Kostenko????????s UNP (24), and First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoliy Kinakh????????s Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (PPPU) with 15.” Well, that was until Tymoshenko got thrown into the opposition, which brings that number down by another 39. It’s because he can no longer count on their votes that he missed the mark on this one.

Now, it looks like Yushchenko may be going a tad impotent with Tymoshenko getting him by the you-know-whats. Constitutional changes will go into effect soon, giving more power to the prime minister and taking some away from the president. The prime minister will also be voted on by the Rada instead of being an approved appointee of the president. Tymoshenko is going to lead the charge to get more seats so that she can get her job back, while Yushchenko has now flip-flopped against the constitutional amendments. Looks like a power struggle if I ever saw one!