Coalition talks between the winners of the parliamentary elections in Ukraine have become more tense as the Central Election Commission announced the formal results. Late on Nov. 11, the CEC announced 421 people who have become members of the new parliament.
Under the constitution, the parliament is supposed to have 450 lawmakers, but annexation of Crimea and parts of Donbas have made it impossible to elect representatives from those regions.
Of the total number 225 deputies were elected on six party tickets. All of them, with the exception of the Opposition Bloc, have become the drivers of coalition negotiations, which are supposed to yield a majority and nominate a prime minister within a month.
But coalition negotiations have not been easy as top winners of the election, President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front appear to have diverging views about how ministers of the Cabinet should be selected and nominated, negotiators for coalition say.
Although Yatsenyuk’s party won the most votes through the proportional system, Poroshenko’s Bloc will command the biggest number of deputies. They will have 82 and 132 lawmakers, respectively. The third biggest party, Samopomich (Self-help), will have 33 lawmakers.
President Poroshenko said he was prepared to see Yatsenyuk as prime minister again, but that’s where his offer ends. Negotiators say he wants to appoint much of the rest of the Cabinet, and Yatsenyuk, unsurprisingly, does not consider this offer very generous.
There is a danger that if the duo fail to agree on how the Cabinet jobs will be carved up, Poroshenko will attempt to form a coalition without Yatsenyuk.
His people think this would be very unfair. “People’s Front took the first place (in proportional vote). People want to see Yatsenyuk as prime minister, and we’re doing our best to make sure the new government is effective,” says Viktoria Siumar, a first-time lawmaker who got in on Yatsenyuk’s party list.
She says all participants of coalition should have jobs in the Cabinet. “Political forces have to delegate ministers to the Cabinet and take responsibility for their work,” says Siumar. “This is not a quota principle, this is shared responsibility.”
At the same time, Samopomich has been careful about stating they want jobs in the Cabinet, instead proclaiming they want to create a comprehensive coalition agreement that would lay out the principles of political cohabitation by the participants.
Samopomich also said that the prime minister should be allowed to cherry-pick his team from a range of professionals suggested by the coalition, regardless of their party affiliation.
“We’re convinced that the coalition has to elect a prime minister by compromise, he needs to be suggested a number of professionals for ministerial jobs, and as a top manager he has to form a team and work with it,” Oksana Syroid of Samopomich said during a TV talk show recently.
Siumar said that there has been no discussion of personalities – at least not outside of meetings between the president and the prime minister.
“Publicly we have not got to the point where we talk about Cabinet,” Siumar says. “The working group on the coalition is debating principles, tasks and reforms for the new government and parliament, as well as laws that need to be approved by the coalition.”
Samopomich has made it clear that it wants both front-runners of the election, Poroshenko’s Bloc and Yatsenyuk’s Front to be members of the governing coalition.
“The key thing now is that two winners of the election, Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc and People’s Front find understanding with each other, and do not allow conflict that would kill the country,” Samopomich leader Andriy Sadovyi said in a statement soon after the Oct. 26 vote. “A repeat of 2005 will become tragic.”
In 2005, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and President Vikor Yushchenko failed to find an understanding and fought with each other, which paralyzed the country and eventually brought Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions to power.
Tymoshenko’s party, which won 19 seats in parliament, is also taking part in coalition negotiations, and so does Oleg Lyashko’s Radical Party, which has 22 lawmakers.
Mykola Tomenko, who represents Poroshenko’s Bloc at the negotiations, has said right-wing Svoboda party, which brought six deputies into the Rada though majority constituencies, might also take part in the coalition. He said the coalition might get up to 305 members, including those who came into parliament through the majority system.
Negotiators say they hope to come up with the finalized version of the coalition agreement by the end of Friday, Nov. 14, and will move to discussing potential nominees for the executive branch.
Hanna Hopko of Samopomich party said coalition negotiators have already discussed and agreed on principles of reform in security and defense sector, humanitarian and social policy, anti-corruption and constitutional reform. They also hope to finalize the principles of formation of the budget during the Nov. 11. coalition talks.
Hopko says they will propose some changes in the election law that needed to hold local elections. Tomenko of Petro Poroshenko Bloc also said all the parties have agreed on the terms of stripping prosecutorial immunity for the lawmakers.
Earlier Volodymyr Hroysman, the deputy prime minister, who make it to parliament on a party ticket of the Poroshenko Bloc, said that the issues of deputy immunity might become a “test for new parliament.”
“It will help to decrease the number of dishonest people to get into the parliament and hide under prosecutorial immunity. It will give a chance to form next government in a brand new way,” Hroysman told the Kyiv Post, adding that their political force will personally vote for changes.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]
