Experts say draft of new constitution will be tabled in parliament next week

Kyiv, June 5 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYT) and the Regions Party have made the first step towards amending the constitution and creating a broad coalition after voting to make next week a in parliament week of plenary meetings, experts have said.

"They have passed the first test. The process began, and a draft constitution will most likely be submitted [to parliament], and then they will be able to move ahead," Director of the Situations Modeling Agency Vitaliy Bala said at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Friday.

Director of the National Institute for Strategic Studies Yuriy Ruban said that the process of creating a broad coalition could be rather long lasting. He pointed to the statement by one of the Regions Party leaders, Borys Kolesnykov, that a broad coalition could be created only after a new constitution is passed.

He said that the BYT and the Regions Party would try to prevent a split in the existing coalition, because the creation of a new one would require the nomination of a candidate for premier, and added that both political forces did not fully trust each other.

Director of the Political Analysis School at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy Oleksiy Haran said that the "idea of a broad coalition could exist, but there remains the question of how it will be realized."