The heroine of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution accused its pro-Russian Prime Minister yesterday of a criminal plot to seize control of the country.

In an interview with The Times, her first since political crisis erupted in Ukraine, Yuliya Tymoshenko said that opposition MPs had been offered millions of dollars in bribes to support the ruling coalition. Others had been threatened or promised ministerial jobs in a drive to secure a two-thirds majority in parliament.

Mrs Tymoshenko said that deputies in her own party had been offered $5 million (£2.5 million) to help the Party of the Regions to control 300 of the 450 seats. Viktor Yanukovych, the Prime Minister, would then have been free to override presidential vetoes and strip Viktor Yushchenko, his bitter rival and President, of power by amending the constitution.

The political crisis erupted when Mr Yushchenko dissolved parliament on Monday and called new elections for May 27. He said that Mr Yanukovych had acted unconstitutionally and usurped power by recruiting 11 opposition deputies to the government side. The move raised support for Mr Yanukovych’s coalition with the Communists and Socialists to 260.

Mrs Tymoshenko went much further, accusing Mr Yanukovych’s side of large-scale corruption in “buying off and co-opting deputies” as part of a deliberate strategy to subvert the wishes of voters. “They put pressure on the businesses of deputies and their families by withholding VAT refunds and pushing them to bankruptcy,” she said. “Or they bought them by promising jobs in government, which is why they have almost doubled the number of ministerial posts.

“People were also literally paid. Deputies from our faction . . . told us that they were offered $5 million to cross the floor. Not every person can resist that. Corruption in this young, fragile democracy is a very serious evil.”

Mrs Tymoshenko was the glamorous face of the Orange Revolution in 2004, her blonde peasant-style plait making her famous worldwide as she led the fight to overturn Mr Yanukovych’s fraudulent election as President. Despite looking characteristically immaculate, she declined The Times’s request for a photograph — she said that her make-up was not done.

The revolution propelled Mr Yushchenko, her Orange coalition partner, to power. They fell out when he dismissed her as Prime Minister and appointed Mr Yanukovych. Aides in the Tymoshenko bloc are confident that she will win the election to lead a new Orange government. She and Mr Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine bloc have patched up relations, they say.

She admitted that voters became disillusioned with the failures of the Orange coalition but insisted that they had learnt from their mistakes. “I firmly believe that this chance of early elections will give us a new opportunity that we will not misuse to bring democratic order and a European future for Ukraine,” she said.

Her party was best placed to unite the deeply divided country, having won votes in Ukraine’s pro-European west and the Russian-speaking east that is Mr Yanukovych’s heartland. “Yanukovych didn’t get a single vote in the west and Yushchenko did not get a significant vote in the east. We came first in west and central Ukraine and second in the east.

“The people who supported the Orange politicians understood our mistake. We expected to get a different country overnight after the revolution. Unfortunately, deep systemic changes take time.”

Mr Yanukovych refuses to accept the President’s decree and has told parliament to keep working until the constitutional court rules on its legality. Mr Yushchenko said yesterday that his decree was binding.

Mrs Tymoshenko said that the elections would take place “with or without the Party of the Regions”. She added: “What is happening in Ukraine today is not chaos. It is very difficult and unpredictable but every step we take is a step towards real democracy.

“The President did not close his ears to the gross violations of the constitution, he refused to allow Ukraine to make a U-turn to the Soviet past. The elections will be in less than 60 days and this is the price we have to pay to save Ukraine for its new democratic European future. It’s quite a modest price.”

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