The opposition’s blockading of parliament, combined with the lack of pro-presidential lawmakers, meant that parliament failed on Jan. 10 to remove Serhiy Arbuzov as chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine. President Viktor Yanukovych recently promoted Arbuzov to first deputy prime minister and some think he could eventually take Prime Minister Mykola Azarov’s place.
If the
deputies fail to show up in parliament on Jan. 11, the vote in
question will be
postponed until February, when the next parliament session is
scheduled to take
place.
On Jan. 9, Yanukovych
proposed the candidacy of Ihor Sorkin as new central bank head
to replace Arbuzov.
The 36-year old Arbuzov, who has close ties to the Yanukovych
family, has
chaired the National Bank of Ukraine for the last two years.
Sorkin
worked as Arbuzov’s deputy. Sorkin’s father, Vyacheslav, works
in Gazprom, the Russian
state-owned gas monopoly, where he is the first deputy head in
the department
for investment and construction.
The
parliament mustered only 217 lawmakers out of the 226
votes needed to remove
Arbuzov. The failure came even though the ruling
pro-presidential Party of
Regions has 209 deputies and their Communist Party allies 33,
more than enough.
The
opposition, which blocked the parliament’s rostrum early in the
day, said they
are not going to support the candidacy of Sorkin.
Imprisoned
ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s minority faction,
Batkivshchyna, demanded that
a reconfirmation of Ukraine’s aspirations to join the European
Union be placed
on the agenda. The party, which controls 99 seats, also wants a
draft law on
decriminalizing the clauses in the criminal code that could free
Tymoshenko and
her ally, ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko. Both are
imprisoned on a vague
Soviet-era law known as “abuse of office.” The West regards them
as political prisoners.
In the afternoon,
with help from the parliament’s majority, they also won support
for placing the
decriminalization draft law on the agenda.
The right-wing Svoboda Party, which controls
36 seats, wanted lawmakers
to take the vote personally – as required by the Constitution,
but frequently
violated — and to deactivate the voting cards of absent
lawmakers.
Volodymyr
Rybak, parliament’s speaker and also pro-presidential Party of
Regions
lawmaker, also called on members of parliament to stick to
personal voting.
Kyiv Post staff
writer YuriyOnyshkiv can be
reached at [email protected]
