Victor Yanukovych was inaugurated yesterday as President of Ukraine. As I understand it, this means that, technically, Ukraine has entered a period of cohabitation. To the best of my knowledge, there are no representatives of his Party of the Regions in the government. The government is still headed by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

This period of cohabitation should, in theory, be short. However, the battle for the premiership is ongoing. Ukraine has a premier-presidential form of semi-presidentialism since the 2006 constitutional reforms. Therefore, the president cannot dismiss the PM. The last legislative elections were held in September 2007, so there is some way to go before the next scheduled election. The Party of the Regions is currently negotiating with other groups and deputies in parliament with a view to forming a majority. To date, though, no agreement has been reached.

In this context, on Wednesday Prime Minister Tymoshenko had planned to hear a vote of no-confidence in the government that had been tabled by the Party of the Regions. According to Ukrainian Journal, she calculated that the motion would fail and that, therefore, she would be unable to be dismissed by the parliament for another year (Art. 87). However, the Party of the Regions withdrew the motion on Tuesday, giving them more time to try to construct a stable anti-Tymoshenko majority.

If it proves impossible to dismiss Tymoshenko, then there is still the option of dissolving parliament. However, President Yanukovych, and others, would prefer to avoid this option if possible, because the composition of the new legislature may be no less favourable to him.

In the end, a new majority is likely to be reached fairly soon, not least because party loyalties in the legislature are weak. However, this does not mean that any such majority would be enduring. In the meantime, the battle for the premiership continues and cohabitation continues.