It looks like the Orange Revolution is pretty much dead. LEvko noted last week that Yulya Timoshenko's party has joined with the Yanukovych majority in the parliament to override Viktor Yushchenko's presidential veto on the power-sharing arrangement between the executive and legislative branches. In practice this means that Yushchenko has lost his two cabinet appointments -- defense and foreign affairs -- and his power over other cabinet positions.

Since the orange revolution, Yushchenko has, in the eyes of many orange supporters, made so many [coerced?] political errors, that BYuT see him as a 'busted flush' [a poker term meaning someone or something that had great potential but ended up a useless failure] having no future prospects.

Clearly for Tymoshenko, always a high-stakes gambler, to gain power, she must defeat her biggest political enemies -Yanukovych and PoR. She is the only leader who could possibly benefit if early elections were to take place. 'Den' suggests maybe Friday's maneouver was an attempt to drive Yushchenko, from whom power is rapidly draining away, into a corner, and leave him no other card to play but to [somehow] force early VR elections.

Perhaps some broad coalition forms there, but otherwise it appears Yushchenko either will be marginalized or create a coalition with Yanukovych to keep Tymoshenko out of power. His ability to shape events in the country has decreased.