KYIV – Ukraine’s Parliament voted on April 14 to approve a reshuffled Cabinet of Ministers, including its new prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, the parliamentary chairman who has long been a close political ally to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
The votes put an end to a political crisis that began in mid-February, when the pro-Western Samopomich and Batkivshchyna factions announced they were abandoning the coalition government after an attempt to dismiss Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk failed.
As a result, a new political configuration has emerged between the establishment parties resistant to reforms – consisting of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and People’s Front – and three pro-Western opposition forces, including Oleh Liashko’s Radical Party, that claim to want a faster pace for more serious, structural reforms.
“Of course, I am aggrieved and disappointed that after a year and several months, three political forces have placed themselves outside the European and democratic coalition,” said Mr. Poroshenko in his address near the start of the parliamentary session.
“As political commentators bitingly put it, an even wider opposition has formed instead of a wide coalition. Yet the opposition is an inalienable attribute of democracy. I respect the right and the decision of these political forces, which are in the opposition to the new government, not giving it any chance,” the president stated.
Though the new Cabinet was approved, numerous political questions remained unresolved after the day’s events in the Verkhovna Rada, which were replete with conflict and accusations of political corruption.
Most importantly, the new Cabinet was formed without a new parliamentary coalition being declared by its de facto members, the Poroshenko Bloc and the People’s Front party, which is led by former Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, whose resignation was approved by parliament in a package vote with Mr. Groysman’s appointment.
As of the evening of April 14, an official new coalition government had yet to be officially approved and the pro-Western opposition insisted it didn’t exist. Yet the coalition – whether it exists or not – does have a new program, one that was approved only on the third attempt.
Notably, the Poroshenko Bloc recruited new deputies to swell its ranks and surpass the 226-vote majority need to form a new Cabinet. As of the morning of the vote, the Poroshenko Bloc and the People’s Front had exactly 226 official members between them.
As of the evening of April 14, while the coalition had lost the votes of Samopomich, the Radical Party and Batkivshchyna (all of whom formally abandoned the coalition), it reportedly has 234 votes – yet to be officially registered – between the Poroshenko Bloc and the People’s Front.
The two factions resorted to unusual tactics to elect the Cabinet because they could not reach an agreement with any of the other three pro-Western forces, who put forth demands that would have reduced the influence of the Poroshenko Bloc and the People’s Front on the political process, such as holding elections based on open-list voting.
The two partners in the new coalition also refused to consider the option of holding early parliamentary elections, which would have eliminated the People’s Front party from politics and sharply reduced the influence of the Poroshenko Bloc.
At the same time, Samopomich, the Radical Party and Batkivshchyna all stood to make big electoral gains from early elections. Its leaders accused the Poroshenko Bloc of resorting to illegal means to swell the ranks of its faction in order to gain its needed majority.
“The honest thing would be to place on the table the signatures to form the coalition, by name, as the previous coalition was formed. The signatures haven’t been demonstrated to the country because the coalition won’t be formed on paper today, but [it will be formed] with the vote – and I ask that the country look at this carefully – to support the appointment of the prime minister and the new government,” said Batkivshchyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshen-ko, referring to the other political forces voting to approve Mr. Groysman.
Indeed his nomination only drew 206 deputies from the Poroshenko Bloc and the People’s Front. The remaining 51 votes came from the Renaissance and Will of the People deputies’ groups, which are directly aligned with oligarchic interests and some of whose members formerly belonged to the Party of Regions.
Besides electing the Cabinet on April 14, 284 national deputies voted for Andrii Parubyi, a Lviv oblast native and close ally to Mr. Yatsenyuk, to head the Parliament. His first vice-chair will be Iryna Herashchenko, who has served as the president’s ombudsman to peacefully resolve the conflict in the Donbas.
The new Cabinet won’t consist of any foreigners, as compared to the three in the previous body. The most successful of them, former Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, will be replaced by Oleksandr Danyliuk, a financier who served as an advisor to former President Viktor Yanukovych.
That fact disappointed reform-oriented Ukrainians, who didn’t hide their pessimism about the new Cabinet, stripped of its new blood from abroad.
“Foreigners help when it comes to conducting reforms and introducing innovations based on real examples, and interfere with the ‘deryban,’ ” said Serhiy Datsyuk, a philosopher and political pundit. The Ukrainian term “deryban” refers to the illegal divvying up of property behind closed doors.
The power brokers, he said, “tried working with foreigners” – the only ones who “had the dignity to rise against the corrupt system.” So the power brokers “decided they don’t need foreigners anymore, and they will continue the deryban.”
The day’s other controversy involved the package vote to appoint Mr. Groysman and dismiss Mr. Yatsenyuk. The third part of the package required a cancelation of the February 16 vote declaring the work of his Cabinet unsatisfactory.
“A package vote directly contradicts parliamentary rules and the Constitution,” Ms. Tymoshenko noted.