By a clear majority of 247 votes, parliament expressed disappointment with the Yatsenyuk government. Then, moments later, a no-confidence vote got only 194 votes – well short of the mark in the 422-seat parliament (reduced 28 seats by Russia’s war and occupation of Crimea).
What changed?
That’s where tracking the votes matter. Many smart guys – Sergii Leshchenko, Maxim Eristavi, Adrian Karatnycky, Brian Mefford and Anders Aslund among them – analyzed the situation well.
Many see the outcome as a victory for the oligarchs – President Petro Poroshenko among them, but also billionaires Rinat Akhmetov, Ihor Kolomoisky and Victor Pinchuk – who flexed their muscles to show that they are still in charge of the nation. They wanted to beat up Yatsenyuk as corrupt and incompetent, hence the first vote. But they wanted to keep him in place, hence the second vote.
But that is only part of the story. The oligarchs’ interests also happened to coincide on this issue with those of Ukraine’s Western backers, who keep supporting Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk and opposing early elections as disastrous. They’re spinning this as a vote for stability. It is not. It will likely trigger greater instability. There is a bad moon rising.
No one was fooled by Poroshenko’s ruse of claiming to want Yatsenyuk to resign, then failing to get 39 members of his own faction – the decisive margin – to support the no-confidence vote. To prove Poroshenko’s hand in it, his loyal associate Volodymyr Groysman, chairman of Verkhovna Rada, abstained from the no-confidence vote.
Poroshenko wants to keep Yatsenyuk in place. As Concorde Capital analyst Oleksandr Parashchiy put it, Yatsenyuk “poses no threat” to Poroshenko’s authority and both share “the same penchant for shady schemes.” Yatsenyuk is also useful in deflecting public anger and keeping Western creditors happy with his ability to tell fairytales to English-speaking audiences.
True reformers can claim a sliver of a victory because, for now at least, the most progressive-minded among them remain in place – Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, Infrastructure Minister Andriy Pyvovarsky and Agriculture Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko – to push for positive changes.
But ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko may be right in saying that Ukraine’s parliament has a clear-cut ruling coalition – an oligarchic kleptocracy that crosses party lines and that needs to be broken up. This is why people are changing formal alliances this week and pushing harder for early elections. Tymoshenko and Samopomich Party dropped out of the ruling coalition following the Feb. 16 vote, leaving only the factions of Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk in it — together with only 217 seats, less than a majority.
If people accept that half of the parliament elected on Oct. 26, 2014 is still made up of corrupt old dogs, then voters should have the chance to kick them out at the nearest opportunity. But this should happen only with a new election law in place that gives the voters the right to pick individual candidates, even from those running on party lists, and with public financing and strict accountability to prevent the buying of seats.
This is why we support early parliamentary elections no later than autumn of 2017 and preferably earlier.
Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk are twin pillars helping to keep the old corrupt oligarchy in place. They allow just enough progress to take place to create the semblance of a “new Ukraine,” but mainly because they are forced to do so by civic society, lawmakers and Western donors.
On issues that really matter, they still behave like past presidents and prime ministers. They keep political control of a criminal justice system – Poroshenko of prosecutors and judges, Yatsenyuk of police – that is not dispensing justice, but rather whose mission is to keep the rotten system in place.
The cynical deception has worked for Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk for two years, but their time is running out – as well it should. The well-meaning West has, unfortunately, backed the wrong guys.
Given their poor performance, and the strong contingent of obstructionists still in parliament, it is hard to see how Ukrainians will have the patience to wait until the next scheduled parliamentary elections in 2019. There are many more than 450 qualified, professional and honest people in this nation – the trick is to get them elected into parliament and placed in positions of authority in government. Ukraine is part-way there.
Having lived through revolution, we view free and fair elections as the better alternative so that voters of this great nation can vent their justifiable rage at the status quo and choose new leaders.
