Ukraine’s parliament failed to get enough votes to remove Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and his Cabinet of Ministers on Feb. 16.
A petition calling for a vote of no-confidence in the government got 159 signatures. A total of 194 out of 354 lawmakers registered in parliament voted to dismiss Yatsenyuk, far short of the 226 votes needed.
Those voting to dismiss Yatsenyuk included 97 members of President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, 28 independent lawmakers, 25 from Samopomich Party, 15 from the Radical Party, 15 from the Batkivshchyna Party led by ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, 8 from the Opposition Bloc and 6 from the People’s Will party.
The following is the faction breakdown of parliament: Bloc of Petro Poroshenko, 136; Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front, 81 members; Opposition Boc, 43 members; Samopomich, 26 members; Radical Party, 21 members; Batkivshchyna Party 19; Volya Narody, 20; Renaissance Party, 23 members, plus 53 independent lawmakers for a total of 422 out of 450 seats. (The 28 missing seats are in Russian-occupied Donbas and Crimea).
The parliament cannot attempt another no-confidence vote until July, according to Ukraine’s Constitution.A resolution of no-confidence in government can only be considered once in parliament during the same session. The ongoing session started in February and will end in July.
The destiny of Yatsenyuk’s government, which had been teetering in recent days due to recent resignations of several ministers and his overwhelming unpopularity among Ukrainians, was in doubt on Feb. 15. That was when the Bloc of President Petro Poroshenko, the largest faction in parliament, parliament decided to support a no-confidence vote.
Poroshenko Bloc’s lawmakers voted to declare the Cabinet’s work in 2015 “unsatisfactory” after Yatsenyuk presented the government’s annual report to the Verkhovna Rada.
Timothy Ash, an analyst at Nomura International, said the vote was “not entirely unexpected – there had been suggestions of some oligarchic groups positioning beforehand to keep Yatsenyuk in power. This means that early elections will be avoided, which at this stage is a market positive. That said Yatseniuk will really need to refresh his cabinet with new blood in terms of reformers and a clear program of economic reform, particularly in the structural and rule of law side…Never seemed that Poroshenko was that serious about removing Yatsenyuk – more like seemed to be going through motions.”
Mustafa Nayyem, a Verkhovna Rada member from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, attributed the failure of the vote to collusion between Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk and three oligarchs – Ihor Kolomoisky, Rinat Akhmetov and Serhiy Lyovochkin.
“Today’s session proved that neither Bankova Street (the presidential administration) nor Hrushevsky Street want to change anything in this swamp,” he wrote on Facebook. “Their comfort zone has numbed their sense of reality.”
Observers speculated that Kolomoisky and Akhmetov instructed their allies in parliament to vote against Yatsenyuk’s dismissal.
Serhiy Leshchenko, a reformist lawmaker from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, told journalists that Petro Poroshenko Bloc members from Donbas linked to Akhmetov failed to support the no confidence vote.
The 161-page performance report highlights the government’s main achievements over the year.
They touted a free-trade deal with the European Union, which came into force on Jan. 1, the unlocking of a four-year $17.5-billion aid program with the International Monetary Fund, and the start of the procedure of restructuring part of Ukraine’s external debt owed to private creditors.
Among the achievements, Yatsenyuk stressed that for the first time in its history, Ukraine hasn’t imported any gas from Russia over the winter, purchasing reverse-flow gas from Europe instead. The government also claimed they envisaged to provide financing for all the newly established anti-corruption agencies.
The lawmakers criticized the report.
Iryna Herashchenko, a member of parliament’s European integration committee, said there was a lack of a dialogue between the ministries and special committees. Nina Yuzhanina, who heads taxation and customs policy committee, said the government failed to present tax reform.
Yatsenyuk says it’s “natural” that the government has been criticized as “lots of work needs to be done” and said that: “We have no right to stop, we prepared the ground for the new country and have to keep moving on along the path of reforms.
Yatsenyuk and his government have been facing mounting criticism for lack of progress in fighting corruption. His popularity ratings have sagged to single figures amid persistent rumors that he was working in favor of powerful business interests.
A recent poll conducted by Sociological Group Rating showed that only 8 percent of Ukrainians were satisfied with Yatsenyuk’s performance, and 70 percent of respondents thought he should resign.
Adding to the pressure, a top Ukrainian prosecutor Vitaly Kasko resigned on Feb. 15, accusing General Prosecutor Viktor Shokin of corruption and blocking high-level prosecutions.
His exit follows that of technocrat Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius who announced his resignation on Feb. 3, complaining that his reform efforts were being blocked and that he was being pressured by a political ally of the president to appoint “dubious persons” as heads of some of the state-owned companies that his ministry controls.
Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko voiced concerns that the next IMF tranche may arrive only after a new government presents its action plan, if Yatsenyuk’s government resigns.
Meanwhile, the Verkhovna Rada has passed the long-awaited bill that cancels the delay in introducing electronic declarations until 2017. The postponement of the mechanism, a requirement of the EU for visa-free travel, was added into the budget bill for 2016 passed by Ukraine’s parliament on Dec. 24, 2015.
In total, 238 lawmakers backed the law.
However, new amendments to the bill were proposed by Petro Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker Vadym Denysenko without previous discussions within a committee. Now the bill limits the circle of the officials’ associates whose assets need to be declared to just the closest relatives – spouses and children. The law also postpones criminal liability for false statements in the declarations until 2017.
Serhiy Leshchenko, a lawmaker with the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, said the parliament “fooled everyone” under the pretext of fulfilling visa-free requirements. He supported the declarations bill at first but called off his vote later.
The Verkhovna Rada also passed a bill allowing political parties to expel candidates from their lists before they are officially elected. Critics call it the “party dictatorship bill,” arguing that it will be used by party leaders to control rank-and-file members and will reduce democracy.
In the meantime, the lawmakers failed to adopt all the required laws on a visa-free travel, including the law on the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office that threatens the agency’s independence.
According to Samopomich party lawmaker Yegor Sobolev, the amendments to the law grant “too many powers to Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.”
Together with asset recovery laws, those were passed in first reading.
Parliament’s Speaker Volodymyr Groisman said the final vote is scheduled for Feb. 18, a day before the European Commission presents legislative proposals to the Council and the European parliament to lift visa requirements for Ukraine and Georgia.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov contributed reporting to the story.
