New politicians in old contexts

A month after the early parliamentary election in the stern conditions of a war in the east, the new Verkhovna Rada is finally ready to start its work. The first session of the Verkhovna Rada of the 8th convocation will take place on November 27. This was announced by the newly elected head of the preparation MP group, Vice Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroisman after the group’s first meeting. “Now we stand at the beginning of making proposals concerning the parliament’s operation,” Hroisman said. “According to Ukrainian law, a number of issues has been determined which are to be considered during the first session. These are committees’ issues. As for the government, this matter will be settled when all MPs take the oath and make up their minds on proposals for the formation and implementation of the coalition agreement.”

Members of the future parliament coalition have also emphasized repeatedly that disputable clauses of the future agreement were to be solved by the night of November 19, and its final version should have been adopted. At the time when this issue went to press, there has been no new information on this.

When The Day asked why the process of signing of the coalition agreement was prolonged (is it because of the fighting for posts?), deputy head of the working group, future Samopomich MP Oksana Syroid said: “Our group, which is busy making up the text of the coalition agreement, has not discussed posts at all. Our task is to create the text itself and consolidate trust between those who will implement the agreement in the future. Over 50 MPs from various political parties, which have reached the agreement by means of consensus, have been involved in the preparation process. This is a sign of readiness for cooperation and an answer to the question why it takes so long: just try to find consensus among five political forces.”

Maksym ROZUMNY, Doctor of Political Sciences, head of Political Strategies Department at the National Institute for Strategic Studies:

“The appointment of Volodymyr Hroisman to the post of the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is quite possible from a general political point of view. Throughout the whole election campaign period, we have not seen a single another more promising politician in the Petro Poroshenko Bloc. But it is hard to say how well it goes with his personal qualities. According to the result of the parliamentary election, it would be logical to split control over the Cabinet of Ministers and Verkhovna Rada between the People’s Front and Petro Poroshenko Bloc.

“As regards the young leaders, we did not see any new politics, expected from them by Ukrainian society, even on the election stage. Therefore, it is unlikely that the old practices and norms of political life will be erased in the parliament. Rather, the young politicians could master the role of public representatives of the old interest groups and affect their configuration, perhaps. The first symptom of this is that they joined the old projects prepared by the old politicians. The second one: after the election, new politicians in almost every force managed to quarrel among themselves. They do not have a consolidated position. Perhaps, a crisis situation will arise which will force them to overcome this inertia.

“I think that now, during the preparation of the coalition agreement, there definitely is no problem with the quality of the document, since such draft agreements were drawn by the Petro Poroshenko Bloc quite a long time ago and could be improved in the meantime. As for the People’s Front proposals, it is likely that they were written within several hours and ready for implementation. That is why this looks more like politicians’ slyness. Of course, principal decisions might be on the table now, the markers of the new unwritten political agreement concerning raising of retirement age, tariff rates for public utilities, the privatization issue, and so on. It would be logical to agree about all this now, because these are serious issues which require a long refinement process. But above that, there is the matter of posts in the government and parliamentary committees. This delays the whole process of signing the agreement.

“War and crisis are overshadowing this process, but functionally, these are absolutely different things, which do not overlap. The situation in the east indicates a tendency towards a stasis, it seems that the Ukrainian side does not plan active combat operations. International negotiations in all existing formats have also stalled. My prediction is that after November 27, events will unfold quite rapidly, and the decision to speed up the start of the Verkhovna Rada’s work shows that basic agreements have already been reached.”