Outside observers would be forgiven for likening Ukrainian politics to a game of chicken. Political opponents seem to put themselves on the path of direct collision in hope that one of them blinks first.
"The war of Viktors" as it is now bring popularly branded in the international media, is one such example. President Viktor Yuschenko's decision to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada last week was clearly intended as a tactical move to increase the stakes and hopefully force Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych to swerve from the collision course with his most bitter rival.
Everyone knows full well that the President only stands to lose from calling an early election, since his party is unlikely to improve on its dismal performance in the last parliamentary election held in March 2006 which was followed by months of political horse trading.
The President, however, is counting on the short term gain of forcing the Prime Minister onto his back foot. Although Yanukovych is likely to do well in a new election, he is unlikely to want to go through the expensive and frustrating exercise of electioneering and forming a new coalition.
Having worked hard to achieve the current power equilibrium, the Prime Minister is reluctant to run the risk of losing his own seat, should the party or electorate decide to try a new political formula in order to break the current stalemate.
Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, the founder of the current coalition, is a pragmatic and practical party which has political and business interests to defend. Its principal backers and power brokers are not particularly interested in another round of messy elections and political wrangling. The country is on a good economic growth trajectory and they all stand to lose if the country is derailed by another all-out political war.
Both the Socialists, led by parliamentary speaker Oleksandr Moroz and the Communists stand to lose from an early election since they cannot be assured of making the 5% threshold required to return to the Rada. Even if they do, their negotiating positions will be weakened.
So, the current power coalition stands to lose a great deal if elections are actually held and this is what President was presumably counting on when he decided to pull the plug on the Rada.
Opting for dissolution was, however, a defensive rather than offensive move. With President's power base in the Rada now eroded by his deputies switching sides, he could see his coming demise as inevitable if he stood by and watched any longer. Yushchenko therefore has little to lose by using one of the sharpest weapons in the presidential armoury.
Nevertheless, it was Yanukovych's grab for more power that sparked the current standoff. He may have underestimated the President's' resolve to raise the stakes even higher, which has put both men on the aforementioned collision course.
As expected, Yanukovych is trying to defuse the latest attack by invalidating the legality of the President's decision and putting his supporters on the streets. While showing one's strength in this fashion has become quite a common maneouvre in Ukrainian politics, it is at risk of becoming seen by an apathetic public as a rather obvious blunt instrument.
Tents, flags and demonstrations do very little to sway general opinion, with both camps already firmly polarised in line with West-East geographical divide. Former supporters of the Orange Revolution, however disappointed they are with their heroes, are very unlikely to come out in favour of Prime Minister Yanukovych even if they think he has been hard done by the President this time.
The struggle for power this time will not be fought on the streets of Kyiv, but in the constitutional courts which have to rule on the legality of the President's move.
Once, again judges will come under enormous political pressure from both sides to rule in their favour. Whatever the outcome, counterattack from the losing side is guaranteed, most likely in the form of more people on the streets, parliamentary sit-ins, the freezing of election funds or whatever other form of leverage can be brought to bear.
However, neither side is strong enough to crush the other. Fortunately, neither is prepared to use real physical force, which means that legal and political wrangling has to somehow finish at the negotiating table, with both sides hoping they will be in a better position than they were before to achieve their political goals.
In that sense, what appears to be a game of chicken is not a game of chicken at all. It is a mere game of perpetual tactics and raising of stakes, but without the clean final outcome everyone is hoping for.
This is democratic competition at its most raw. To their credit both men are still ostensibly willing to play within the constitutional and democratic framework of the country rather than try to invoke the military or security forces as witnessed during Boris Yeltsin's stand-off with the Russian parliament in 1992.
The Ukrainian people would never forgive either of the two men if it ever came to that. As a result, this high-stakes game of brinkmanship is likely to go on until both players have expended all their political capital and the public gets fed up with their fruitless efforts to gain the
upper hand.
But for now, the curtain is only just rising on act two of a political drama everyone hopes will end sooner rather than later.
