The decision of Ukraine's president Viktor Yushchenko on Monday to dissolve parliament and call an election for May 27th brings to a head months of confrontation with his prime minister over who rules Ukraine and the broad direction it should take.
Accusing his rival Viktor Yanukovich of subverting democracy and undermining an agreement to share power, the president has portrayed his fiercely contested move as a pre-emptive strike to uphold the values of the "Orange Revolution" which brought him to power.
For Mr Yanukovich, the winner of last year's parliamentary elections, the dissolution is akin to a "coup" and he has asked the constitutional court to overturn the presidential decree. Both sides have brought supporters on to the streets, so far peacefully, while Mr Yushchenko has warned through his defence minister that the army will answer only to him as commander in chief.
Part of the problem lies in the unusual Ukrainian dual executive system in which both president and prime minister, elected at different times by different methods, share the spoils of office. Mr Yuschenko, elected in 2005 after the "Orange revolution" forced a re-run of a rigged presidential election which he went on to win, controls the defence and foreign ministries.
Mr Yanukovich, who controls the interior ministry, has also been prising reform-minded officials out of their jobs and has "induced" a number of members of the president's Our Ukraine party to cross the floor to join his Party of the Regions-led faction. The result is that Mr Yanukovich can now command 260 of 450 votes in the parliament - if he reaches 300 he can veto presidential decisions.
Yesterday he said he would not take part in any electioneering until the constitutional court ruled and insisted that although he does not favour an election he has nothing to fear from one. In the latter respect, polls and local observers concur with him - an election is likely to see him re-elected as prime minister and Mr Yushchenko's party consigned to third place behind his erstwhile ally, the former prime minister Julia Tymoshenko.
Either way, election or no election, it appears Ukraine's political instability is likely to continue, the stand-off between prime minister and president unresolved and entrenched by the constitution. That prospect does not bode well for investment and the economy, and will send confusing mixed signals to friends abroad, whether in Russia or the EU, about where the country is going and where stands reform. Ukraine's unfinished revolution, it appears, is frozen mid-course.