The leader of the Svoboda faction in Ukraine's parliament, Oleh Tiahnybok, believes that the Verkhovna Rada in its current composition will not be able to start its work and calls for early parliamentary and presidential elections.

"It's all over now. The parliament won't start its work. That's all. End of story. At present, the parliament is dysfunctional... The right thing to do would be to call the early elections, both parliamentary and presidential ones," he said in an interview with the Ukrainian service of Radio Liberty, which was published on the radio's Web site on Saturday.

According to Tiahnybok, this is one of the demands of the parliamentary opposition.

"You should understand that blocking the parliament is also aimed at attracting the attention of the Ukrainian society and the global community to the fact that there is something wrong in Ukraine," the Svoboda leader explained the reasons for blocking the parliament by the opposition.

In his words, despite the need for the early presidential elections, the opposition continues to demand that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych should come to parliament and make his report.

"There are certain logical steps that the opposition should do in order to protect not so their rights but the rights of those who voted for them. One of such steps is to urge the president, as the guarantor of the Constitution, to fulfill his constitutional duty - to give the annual report and accordingly, to get a reaction of the opposition. And we want to get an explanation of what is happening in the country. Naturally, we have no illusions that he will come, but we had to demand this," the faction leader said.

As reported, opposition deputies blocked the rostrum and presidium of parliament for nearly three weeks - from February 5 to February 22, demanding the introduction of personal voting. After it was unblocked, the parliament held one plenary meeting on February 22 and announced a break until March 5.

On March 5 and 6, members of opposition factions again blocked the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada in protest against a lawsuit in court to strip MP Serhiy Vlasenko, a defense lawyer for former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, of his parliamentary powers. On March 7, they continued blocking the parliament in protest against the court's decision to deprive Vlasenko of his mandate.

Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Rybak said that the parliament could start working on Tuesday, March 19. However, he did not rule out that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych could use his right to dissolve parliament.