Yushchenko urged to tackle Kuchma

Yushchenko supporters protest outside the parlaiment building in Kiev

KIEV, Ukraine - Opposition leaders in Ukraine are calling for ousted Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko to stand for president.

They are planning a national referendum in which Yushchenko will challenge President Leonid Kuchma.

Yushchenko, a reformer who had done much to revive the country's economy, was toppled on Thursday by a parliamentary vote of no-confidence.

Now Yulia Tymoshenko, one of the leaders of an informal alliance of opposition groups dedicated to ousting Kuchma, says Yushchenko is the man to lead Ukraine.

"I would like to see a person who is honest, professional and the people's true choice. Viktor Yushchenko has those characteristics," she said. "I want Ukraine to have a president it should not be ashamed of."

A former deputy prime minister, Tymoshenko has led an alliance of opposition parties that has mobilised mass street protests calling for Kuchma to resign over the scandal of a murdered journalist.

Yushchenko told Associated Press TV News: "The idea being discussed now with various leaders is how to forge democratic forces in Ukraine, which would be mainly oriented at a unifying notion and not against somebody.

"I'm convinced that we have the possibility to gather a broad front of those people who for various reasons remain diversified and fragmented. They would gather only for the sake of a democratic Ukrainian idea."

The opposition parties have been pushing to topple Kuchma since November when a former presidential guard released secretly recorded tapes on which a voice similar to Kuchma's was heard ordering officials to "deal with" a reporter.

The journalist, Heorhiy Gongadze, went missing last year. His headless body was found in a wood outside Kiev in November.

Kuchma denies any involvement. But the scandal pitched the president, re-elected in 1999 for a five-year term, into a battle with the opposition.

Yushchenko is to submit a formal resignation note to Kuchma, after which the Cabinet will become a caretaker government for up to 60 days.

Kuchma has to name a new prime minister and obtain the consent of a majority of the 450 lawmakers to approve the appointment.

The parliament voted 263 to 69 to remove Yushchenko, who had been appointed in December 1999.

As the decision was announced 15,000 Yushchenko supporters gathered outside the parliament building in Kiev, chanting his name and demanding the Kuchma's resignation.

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