Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov attributes the opposition's demand that his government resign to the beginning of the presidential election campaign.
“The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada will have a government day on April 19, and the government’s responsibility for the socioeconomic situation in the country will be considered at the opposition factions’ initiative. I want the people to understand that the opposition has raised this issue not out of care for the country’s fate. This is dictated by only one thing, that is, rivalry for the presidential chair, which the opposition leaders have already started,” Azarov said in opening a government session on Wednesday.
He called such tactics destructive.
“The logic of their behavior is primitive and cynical – the worse the better. This is a destructive position. I want to cool their hot heads down. The presidential elections will begin at the time defined by the constitution. And the opposition’s false start today has zero results,” he said.
At the same time, he stressed that the government is always prepared to give account for its actions and decisions.
It was reported earlier that the Ukrainian parliamentary opposition on February 27 started collecting signatures for holding a vote of no confidence in the government. Batkivschyna party faction leader Arseniy Yatseniuk said on March 21 that 174 parliamentarians had signed a draft resolution expressing no confidence in the government.
Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Rybak instructed all parliamentary committees on April 3 to consider a draft resolution on expressing no confidence in the government. Later the same day, the Batkivschyna party said on its Web site that the budget committee, the legal policy committee, and the organized crime and corruption committee supported the resolution.
Rybak said at a session of a conciliatory council of the heads of the parliamentary factions and committees on April 15 that the parliament will consider the government’s performance on Friday, April 19.
