Early vote possible in Ukraine

Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko suggested on Friday that maybe Ukraine's presidential election should be moved up from its scheduled date in 2010, if the country is forced to have another round of parliamentary elections as a way of breaking the political deadlock that has plagued the country for some time now.

She also said she would like to reform a ruling coalition with President Viktor Yushchenko - though if you accept the definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, then it's insane to think that coalition could be put back together. The Tymoshenko-Yushchenko coalition has fallen apart twice since the two of them led a pro-democracy movement in Ukraine in 2004; neither time did the coalition last more than a year, and that was before Yushchenko accused Tymoshenko of treason, which he did earlier in the month. Kind of hard to imagine them getting back together.

Tymoshenko also said it was possible her party might look to form a coalition with former President Viktor Yanukovich's Party of Regions. That could signal a real change in policy for Ukraine, since Yanukovich's party is largely backed by ethnic Russian Ukrainians and is decidedly pro-Moscow.

For her part Tymoshenko says that she wants more "balanced" relations with Russia than have existed under the very pro-Western rule of President Yushchenko.