New coalition the same
Two important, landmark events took place in the Verkhovna Rada last week. The first one is that Ukraine received a new old “coalition of national development, stability, and order.” The other one, probably more prominent, is the president practically lost control over his political faction. Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense Bloc (NU-NS) completely and irrevocably broke the connection with Viktor Yushchenko. Thirty-seven MPs of Our Ukraine authorized Borys Tarasiuk to sign the coalition agreement against the president’s will. Viacheslav Kyrylenko and his deputy Roman Zvarych had no other option but to resign. Kyrylenko said that 37 votes is a majority, albeit one with the smallest possible margin. He stressed: “I do respect their decision. But I do not want to be the head of the faction that represents its minority.” The coalition agreement was signed even by the MPs who are typically considered to be “pro-presidential.”
“I am totally convinced that what we did was right and corresponds to the president’s interests,” says Olha Herasymiuk. “Society will react positively to our decision; this is by no means an anti-presidential decision. Soon this will be obvious for everyone. I think that the president has to be satisfied with our actions.”
It looks like voting in the Verkhovna Rada will continue to be situational. It is good that so far the Communists have consistently supported the coalition (shame on the Rukh members). Adam Martyniuk recently produced a pearl of wisdom: “Communists do not consider themselves to belong to either of the three: the coalition, the parliamentary majority, or the opposition.” It is not that hard to understand them because they have to maintain the party, publish their newspaper, and, in a word, make things happen for them.
Journalists, experts, and politicians themselves are now debating whether it is necessary to get 226 MPs to sign the coalition agreement. They say that there is such a requirement. It is a known fact that the coalition parties are lacking 13 signatures. However, according to MP Andrii Portnov of BYuT, there is no problem here: “There is a ruling of the Constitutional Court on this matter. It says that the coalition is formed by factions that have 226 MPs. There are more than 240 MPs in the three factions: the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT), NU-NS, and the Lytvyn Bloc.”
Bankova Str. did not even try to pretend that they are happy about the new coalition. They say that everything will go fine after the prime minister is replaced. Roman Bezsmertny, deputy head of the Presidential Secretariat, commented: “It would be great if the current situation changed after the Speaker is elected and the coalition agreement is signed. But honestly, it is all not about the coalition or the Speaker; the problem is with the Cabinet and, more precisely, with the prime minister.”
A large-scale Internet conference with the president was scheduled to take place last week. However, it was postponed for an unknown period of time, supposedly because of an emergency meeting on the heat supply cutoff. But most likely the President’s press service did not take into account the peculiarities of the Internet audience. The question that had the highest ranking read: “How much is it necessary to pay you so that you, all the MPs in Verkhovna Rada, the members of the Cabinet, and all officials will leave the country forever?” This question was received 70,000 votes. The second most popular one read, “What end do you start eating a chocolate-covered croissant from?” And this was not even the most derisive question. “Can a person with the rating of 5 percent give press conferences?” There even were questions like the following ones: “Is there a question that you can answer without thoughtfully smacking your lips and moving your hands back and forth?” More than 9,000 people voted for the question, “Where should I emigrate from this country?” In the long run, it is a good thing that the Internet conference was postponed; the bad thing is that it was scheduled at all.
