KIEV, Ukraine - Viktor Yanukovych, whose fraud-tainted victory in 2004 Ukrainian presidential elections sparked the Orange Revolution, was expected to become the country's next prime minister Thursday.

He was nominated by his former rival, President Viktor Yushchenko, who acknowledged that his decision could cause dismay, but called it a historic chance to mend the country's deep divisions.

Then Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma, left, gestures as he speaks to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych prior to a military parade marking the 13th anniversary of Ukraine's independence in Kiev on this Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2004 file photo. Yanukovich, whose victory in fraud-marred 2004 Ukrainian presidential elections sparked the Orange Revolution, was expected Thursday, August 3, 2006, to become the country's next prime minister after the president submitted his former rival's candidacy to parliament. [AP file photo]

"I ask people to understand that we have a unique chance (to do what) we talked about on Independence Square," Yushchenko said in an early morning address. Kiev's Independence Square was the center of the Orange Revolution mass protests.

Yushchenko's decision ended four months of wrangling following parliamentary elections that gave no party a majority of seats. The country fell into political paralysis as parties argued, maneuvered and shifted alliances to form a majority coalition.

In the end, Yanukovych's Party of Regions - which won the biggest chunk of seats in the March parliament elections - formed a coalition with the Socialists, who had defected from an earlier coalition that included Yushchenko's bloc, and the Communists.

The new coalition nominated Yanukovych to be premier - the post he had held when he ran against Yushchenko. Yushchenko's announcement that he would accept the nomination came only at around 2 a.m. Thursday - two hours after the constitutional deadline for him to make a decision expired.

Lawmakers were expected to vote on Yanukovych's nomination Thursday afternoon, after he and Yushchenko signed a national unity agreement.

Yushchenko said the agreement preserves his pro-Western and reformist policies. Lawmaker Roman Zvarych said that, with that agreement, Yushchenko's party is ready to join the coalition. But some members of the president's coalition said they would refuse to join Yanukovych.

The decision to name Yanukovych premier marks a stunning comeback for the man who left politics in disgrace after Ukraine's Supreme Court threw out his fraud-marred presidential win in 2004 and Yushchenko won the court-ordered revote.

Yanukovych bounced back in the March election, adopting Western-style campaign tactics as he spent countless months in get-out-the-vote rallies in eastern and southern Ukraine. He has emphasized a softer position, saying he supports cooperation with

NATO, joining the World Trade Organization and membership in the European Union. However, he has refused to back down from his support for Russian language speakers and his insistence that membership in NATO could only be decided by a public referendum.