President Viktor Yushchenko, battered by a poor election showing, probed potential coalition partners today while his estranged Orange Revolution ally remained sure she would return to government.
Yulia Tymoshenko, whom he fired as prime minister less than a year after they jointly defeated the Moscow-backed establishment, had the best showing among the liberal parties in power since Mr Yushchenko took office.
Mr Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party slumped to third spot.
The Regions Party of Viktor Yanukovich, the Moscow-backed loser in the 2004 election, still held first place as the votes cast in Sunday's poll were counted.
But the combined liberal vote was bigger. And Ms Tymoshenko was demanding her job back at the price of restoring a three-party "Orange" coalition shattered by her dismissal.
"Our aim is to work in a stable way based on a joint political memorandum," Mr Yushchenko, shown on Ukrainian television, told current prime minister Yuri Yekhanurov.
"We need a system of values around which to build a coalition, not a system of distributing jobs to divide us."
The outcome has put Mr Yushchenko in a difficult spot. With his own party no longer the leading liberal force, he has to make up with Ms Tymoshenko half a year after sacking her in response to infighting between two competing camps in the government.
Before Sunday's election to a parliament empowered to choose the prime minister, analysts had suggested Mr Yushchenko might form a "grand coalition" with Mr Yanukovich, his old nemesis.
But the president, his powers already curbed by recent constitutional change, now has had his options narrowed.
Any alliance with the Regions Party could immediately wreck his support among voters who spent weeks in the Orange Revolution trudging through snow to stand in Kiev's Independence Square.
Ms Tymoshenko looked tense as she emerged from talks.
"We must continue along the path we set out on during the presidential election," she said. "Our meeting shows this path is possible. We will do everything to deal with formalities within a week ... the Regions Party will go into opposition."
Oleksander Moroz, leader of the Socialists, the small third "orange" party, said voters clearly wanted a renewed alliance.
"The campaign was based on alternatives - backing either Independence Square or the Regions Party," he told reporters.
Mr Yanukovich said little after meeting the president, but made clear he still saw himself leading a government committed to reversing an economic slowdown.
"We have set the task of stabilising the country, restoring order and overseeing economic growth." he said. "The Regions Party is the leader. We will form a coalition."
As talks proceeded, Mr Yushchenko expressed concern at the slow vote count in Kiev as well as in areas where Mr Yanukovich scores well, like the Crimean port of Sevastopol and eastern Ukraine.
"This could be construed as a deliberate act in favour of specific political forces," the president was quoted as saying in a message urging officials to complete the count quickly.