Press cutting: Ukraine's PM rejects president's decree calling early election

Inside the president appears to have made a bid to assert his waning authority. …

But yesterday experts said Mr Yushchenko's chances of supported Mr Yanukovich was this time more likely to beat his pro-western rival. …

Ukraine's 18-member constitutional court would probably back Mr Yanukovich, Andrew Wilson, a senior lecturer in Ukrainian studies at the UCL School of Slavonic & East European Studies, told the Guardian. He said: "We don't know because the court has kept silent for so long. It hasn't done anything since August. Cynics say that certain members [of the court] have been bidding their price up. The suspicion is that the party of the regions has a slim majority."

Even if President Yushchenko succeeded in forcing fresh elections, his enfeebled party was almost certain to do badly. …

Mr Wilson said: "Yushchenko is not inclined to make big and brave decisions. His party faces meltdown. People in it have not wanted elections until now." But he added: "There came a point when Yushchenko had nothing to lose. They [the parliament] had taken away his powers one by one." …

Luke Harding, 'The Guardian'