Ukraine's outgoing President Leonid Kuchma Monday rejected reforming the country's election laws on terms set by the opposition ahead of a rerun of the country's rigged vote later this month. 

He spoke as Ukraine faced a third week of turmoil after presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko told supporters to keep up street pressure on the authorities with mass rallies and a blockade of government buildings.

The opposition, emboldened by a Supreme Court ruling that the rigged November 21 election should be re-staged, wants Kuchma to fire his premier -- who officially won the now discredited vote -- and conduct election reform before they agree to constitutional changes to curb presidential powers.

"I am ready for further steps to lift this unmotivated tension so I propose once again looking at the whole packet of bills to change the election law and on changing the constitution," Kuchma told a government meeting, forced by the protests to convene at his residence just outside the capital.

"I would be prepared to sign them into law after they are adopted."

A rowdy parliamentary session on Saturday was adjourned after pro-Yushchenko members refused to vote on the two issues in a single poll.

The opposition says it will curb presidential powers after the December 26 election. It says the bill before parliament on Saturday had been an attempt to neuter the post ahead of the poll.

On Sunday, Yushchenko told tens of thousands of supporters who have massed in the center of Kiev for two weeks not to lift a blockade of government offices until Kuchma fired Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and took steps to ensure a fair vote.

However, patience wore thin for hundreds of Ukrainian civil servants stuck outside their offices yesterday.

State workers, many holding roses to show their neutrality, stood by in chilly weather, looking distressed as they waited to see if the protesters would let them into the building that houses parts of the economy and finance ministries.

"There are hundreds of things we must finish before the end of the year, like the budget for next year. But these people won't let us in," said Alexei, an Economy Ministry official.

"As Economy Ministry officials we are responsible for not letting the economy collapse. But I don't know what to do."

Civil servants deliberately wore no orange ribbons in support of Yushchenko -- which most protesters wear -- or Yanukovich's white-and-blue campaign colors.

"The whole system has been paralyzed. It's like a broken computer," said a Finance Ministry official in her 40s. Her colleagues nodded their heads in agreement.

The situation was similar at other state buildings.

Right after Kuchma rejected reforms to the country's election law, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana is returning to Kiev yesterday for another mediation effort in Ukraine's political crisis, his office said.

Solana will meet political leaders along with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus and Russian envoy Boris Gryzlov.

(China Daily December 7, 2004)