An analyst has argued that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had already chosen the replacement for Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, who had his resignation and that of his government accepted by the head of state on Monday.
Moreover, the government’s resignation enables Yanukovych to come up
with ministerial appointments that would mean more freedom of maneuver
for him, the director of the Kyiv Center for Political and Conflict
Studies, Mykhailo Pohrebynsky, told Interfax-Ukraine.
“Apparently, the president does have a guaranteed majority vote [in
parliament] to confirm his choice of premier, as he’d hardly have parted
company with Azarov if he didn’t. But now he has a higher degree of
freedom, as it were,” Pohrebynsky said.
The fact that it is parliament that will decide ultimately who makes
up the next government, “partially relieves [the president] of his
responsibility, which means that this situation is essentially different
from the situation that would be the case if he had fired some of the
people and had brought others back into government,” the analyst said.
“Then one influence group in the presidential entourage would have
gained bonuses and the other would have ended up in the opposite
situation. I think that [changing the government] enables him to evade
such problems.”
Pohrebynsky said he could not predict the makeup of the new government.
