I've heard and read about this scenario more than once lately, but Andrei Chernikov, formerly the Kommersant's Ukraine correspondent, seems to have seen it coming a long time ago. Here's a quote from his May 23, 2005, Kommersant story on Yulia Tymoshenko's reasons to get sacked (via Andrei's LiveJournal, in Russian):

The premier's calculations are simple and understandable: prime ministers don't get to keep their chairs for a long time, while in the parliament one is guaranteed five years of political life. That's why Ms. Tymoshenko's goal isn't just to get herself into the parliament but to secure as many seats as possible for her bloc. This can be accomplished by leaving the post of the head of the government as a victim - humiliated and misunderstood (exactly how Mr. Yushchenko left his premier's post in the past), but loved by the people. And if the president does not sack the premier himself, then the current parliament - in which the opposition's strategy is based on criticising the government - will do it for him in February next year. In other words, Ms. Tymoshenko should leave either now or closer to the fall, so that she has enough time to carry out a full-fledged election campaign, without the distraction of having to overcome various crises.