TRUSKAVETS, Ukraine — On the first day of October, the ruling Servant of the People party gathered in this resort town in Lviv Oblast to sum up their midterm accomplishments and decide their policy direction in the next two years.
But there was another big topic — the ouster of Verkhovna Rada speaker Dmytro Razumkov, a founding member of the party. He was not invited.
The tension between Razumkov and President Volodymyr Zelensky had been building for a long time. The latest disagreement erupted over the president’s law on oligarchs, which has recently cleared the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. Razumkov did not support the law and sent it to the Venice Commission to examine, attracting the party’s ire. Several lawmakers told the Kyiv Post that the speaker is “not a team player.”
David Arakhamia, the Servant of the People faction leader, began officially collecting votes for the speaker’s resignation before the trip. Close to 180 have been collected, well in excess of the 150 needed to put the issue to a vote.
“If a person doesn’t support the fight against the oligarchs … the sanction policy against (pro-Kremlin oligarch Viktor) Medvedchuk, for example, then I think these people have different political views,” Zelensky told journalists at the convention. Razumkov was the only member of the National Security and Defense Council who didn’t back sanctions against Medvedchuk’s pro-Kremlin TV channels and other companies in February.
The convention, which lasted until Oct. 3, brought nearly 200 lawmakers, several Cabinet ministers, the prosecutor general, top presidential aides, and Zelensky himself to Truskavets, a city of about 30,000 people, some 600 kilometers southwest of Kyiv.
The last time the presidential party gathered in the five-star hotel Rixos Prykarpattya in Truskavets was right after the parliamentary elections. In early August 2019, the newly-minted “Servants,” most of whom had no political experience, were there for the so-called “lawmakers school,” where experts explained the basics of working in the parliament.
In two years, Zelensky has changed. Experts agree that he is no longer the “simple grassroots guy” he used to be at the beginning of the term. His team has changed as well. Zelensky’s circle contains almost none of the people who initially helped him come to power. Razumkov is one of the last remaining ones. But it doesn’t look like he’ll last very long.
“Zelensky was not satisfied with Razumkov’s attempt to be not a decoration on the stage, not be a backing vocalist, but to have his own role. And we can have certain roles only with the permission of Zelensky,” think tank head Viktor Bobyrenko, who first predicted Zelensky’s political rise in a 2015 editorial, told the Kyiv Post.
He and another expert believe that party member Ruslan Stefanchuk will become the next speaker. When asked by the Kyiv Post, Stefanchuk said that “the issue of my appointment as the speaker of the Rada is not on the agenda yet. I will decide when it will be.”
‘Tense’ vote
On a foggy morning on Oct.1, lawmakers from the Servant of the People began to gather in Truskavets.
Oleksiy Zhmerenetsky, a member of the Anti-Corruption Policy Committee in the Rada, told the reporters that lawmakers paid for the tickets and accommodation themselves and that Truskavets was chosen for symbolic reasons.
However, some took advantage of the party budget. Mykola Tyshchenko, who was at the epicenter of a scandal last year when journalists found out he kept his restaurant in Kyiv open during the nationwide lockdown, admitted that party funds would pay for his stay.
“And you will soon see the party’s financial report showing it,” he told reporters. The 2019 party meeting in Truskavets cost Hr 11.2 million ($422,000.)
President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Servant of the People faction meeting in Truskavets on Oct. 2, 2021. (Press service of the Servant of the People party)
Before the meeting, several lawmakers admitted to the Kyiv Post that they have little idea of what they will discuss.
“We have as many details as you do. I’m sure we’ll talk about Razumkov, but we are not yet collecting signatures,” said one MP, who declined to be named to avoid a reprimand from the party.
David Arakhamia, who arrived at the Rixos Prykarpattya hotel around noon, told journalists that his bringing the resignation vote signature sheet means nothing — yet.
“Do you know how many times we have taken such signature sheets for some ministerial resignations? And they are still working,” Arakhamia told reporters.
Others were sure Razumkov will be forced out. “There is no space left for communication. We will definitely fire him, maybe not this plenary week, but we will, definitely,” said a different lawmaker, who was not authorized to speak about it.
Many Servant of the People members said they had not yet come to a final decision on the speaker’s ouster and want to listen to arguments during the meetings.
“I want to hear the president’s opinion. Razumkov’s opinion could be heard from the numerous interviews he gave,” parliamentarian Olga Smaglyuk-Vasylevska told the Kyiv Post. “I wouldn’t like all this to be based on any personal issues. First of all, we should think of state interest.”
The head of the Servant of the People party, Oleksandr Kornienko, later stated at the briefing: “No one would convene such a huge event just to collect 150 signatures. This could be easily done in two hours on Monday in Kyiv.”
The signatures began to be collected the following day, on Oct.2, when Zelensky arrived at the resort.
The president told journalists at the convention that Razumkov’s fate is an “internal faction issue.” He said that any member of the faction should be dismissed if their views differ from those of over 200 other members and the 73% of Ukrainians who voted for the party’s program.
Several lawmakers said that the vote at Truskavets was “tense.”
“The question of Razumkov was put to the vote by Arakhamia, we voted by hand. The majority voted for his ouster,” one MP who participated in the meeting and was not authorized to talk to the media about it, told the Kyiv Post.
The lawmaker said that between five and seven deputies didn’t support the speaker’s resignation. They included the head of the Committee on Education, Science and Innovation Serhiy Babak, and the head of the Committee on Economic Development Dmytro Natalukha, who will most likely lose their positions if Razumkov resigns. Lawmakers Vasyl Mokan and Nelly Yakovleva also backed the speaker.
According to the unnamed lawmaker, during Zelensky’s speech, Yakovleva reminded Zelensky that Razumkov helped him get elected. The president replied: “Don’t forget who got you elected.”
One of the top party members told the Kyiv Post that voting in Rada for Razumkov’s resignation is scheduled for Oct. 7, the day before the speaker’s birthday.
“It will not be a ‘gift.’ But we are preparing,” said the top member.
Lawmakers close to the speaker are convinced that getting rid of Razumkov will take about two weeks. Procedurally, the speaker must prepare a report on his work and implementation of the Verkhovna Rada budget. The Accounting Chamber must also submit its own opinion. Two hundred twenty-six lawmakers have to vote for resignation.
Stefanchuk told media outlet LB.ua that the parliament’s rules of procedure are rarely 100% implemented.
What was the reason?
A fellow party member said Razumkov just does not play well with the team.
“Razumkov should have been more corporate-oriented because he came [to the position] from the Servant of the People party,” said Smaglyuk-Vasylevska. “But he thinks he has a greater degree of freedom. This is his right, but the consequences in any case — whether we’ll vote for his resignation or not — can be very bad. There may be a parliamentary crisis, and I would very much like us to avoid that.”
Tyshchenko criticized Razumkov for “inflated political ambitions.”
“Razumkov came to our team. As it turned out, today he doesn’t think that we are his team. This is a big problem. We need a monolithic team spirit, we don’t need traitors, we don’t need Trojan horses,” Tyshchenko told the KyivPost.
President Volodymyr Zelensky discusses the Transformation Plan of Ukraine with lawmakers at the Servant of the People’s visiting session in Truskavets on Oct. 2, 2021. Truskavets is a resort town of 30,000 people, located 590 kilometers southwest of Kyiv. (Press Service of the Servant of the People party)
Experts say that Razumkov’s ouster is inevitable because he has distanced himself from the president. Razumkov has seemingly been the only top official daring to publicly disagree with Zelensky and his governing party.
“Razumkov was distancing himself from the presidential team and was increasingly showing his position. The law on oligarchs became a Rubicon for both sides, as Razumkov took a tough political stance, and the presidential team realized that there would be no constructive work with him,” political expert Volodymyr Fesenko, who is close to the current government, told the Kyiv Post.
According to Yevhen Mahda, director of the Institute of World Policy in Kyiv, Zelensky “simply does not realize that the speaker cannot be always a ‘servant.'”
“Not even because of the desire to have one’s own political career, this is the logic of a parliamentary-presidential republic. The speaker must be an independent player. We do not have political serfdom.”
Analyst Bobyrenko said Razumkov’s time is running out. “We can safely predict that Razumkov will be fired. Probably not this week because the party will try to abide by procedural regulations. Later, the procedure of electing a new speaker will begin, and it quite definitely is going to be Ruslan Stefanchuk.”
Razumkov’s political future
Experts believe that after his resignation, Razumkov will create his own political party. Fesenko thinks it would be difficult for Razumkov to grow his base without being the speaker.
“Razumkov does not yet have a stable electorate. He needs to find his political niche, work with the voters who already support him, and try to grow the electorate. But without the position of speaker, it will be more difficult.” an expert said.
“Razumkov positions himself as a classic centrist. But in this niche of liberal-democratic centralism are (Kyiv Mayor) Vitali Klitschko and (ex-Prime Minister) Volodymyr Groysman, so I don’t rule out the possibility that they can create a situational union. But I have little faith in a single joint political project,” Fesenko added.
However, experts are skeptical about Razumkov’s presidential future.
“Leonid Kravchuk was the only one to become president from the Verkhovna Rada. All the negativity people feel towards the parliament’s decisions and the low trust level to the Rada is always collected by the speaker,” Mahda said.
“Razumkov can only run for the presidency to get an electoral base and become an independent politician. He understands that the next election is not his,” Bobyrenko said. “He can reach the ‘major league,’ where Yurii Boyko, Yulia Tymoshenko, Petro Poroshenko and Zelensky are currently playing and can become ‘the fifth suit in a deck of cards.'”
“This is exactly his wish, and it can come true if he is put in the spotlight by the oligarchs. Potentially, he has his own electorate, those who turned away from Zelensky in southern and eastern Ukraine.”
