Klitschko’s UDAR Party refuses to participate in Constitutional Assembly

"The UDAR Party has welcomed the statement by the opposition parties, members of the Dictatorship Resistance Committee, to which the UDAR party turned last week with a proposal to jointly decide on the participation or non-participation in the work in the Constitutional Assembly, and which decided today not to participate in the assembly," reads the party’s statement issued on Monday.

Earlier on Monday, Leader of the Front for Change Party Arseniy Yatseniuk said that the Dictatorship Resistance Committee decided not to take part in the work of the constitutional assembly created at the initiative of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

"A constitutional assembly can be created only in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the institutional that passes the constitution, and not by the official that has to guarantee the fulfillment of the constitution," he said. According to Yatseniuk, the president has to be one of the members of the constitutional assembly.

As reported, in early August 2011, after the arrest of former Ukrainian Prime Minister and Batkivschyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko, representatives of opposition parties united into the Dictatorship Resistance Committee. It included the Batkivschyna Party, Civil Position, European Party, For Ukraine, People’s Self-Defense, Our Ukraine, the People’s Rukh of Ukraine, Reforms and Order Party, Fatherland Defenders Party, Svoboda, Ukrainian Social-Democratic Party, and Front for Change.
After the vote on the law on parliamentary elections, the political council of the Civil Position Party decided to quit the committee.

On Jan.26, a decree on the issues of formation and organization of activity of the constitutional assembly was posted on the president’s Web site.