Turchynov and Yatsenyuk will run in the elections together

Photo: Reuters

Premier Arseniy Yatsenyuk and VR Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov are creating a new political project to run in the early parliamentary elections. The members of the government that received their portforlios by Batkivshchyna quota may participate in the project

Batkivshchyna facing a schism

As people’s deputy of the Batkivshchyna faction told Capital with a request for anonymity, a number of members of the faction are currently developing a variant for the formation of a new party that will run in the next parliamentary elections.

He said VR Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov is managing the process and Arseniy Yatsenyuk is likely be the leader of the party. “The variant with the name People’s Front is being considered, though this has not yet been finalized,” the deputy said.

People’s deputy Andriy Senchenko (Batkivshchyna) told Capital that he is aware of such plans of the Yatsenyuk-Turchynov team. “Initially, they held talks with President Poroshenko, though they yielded no results. Now, they are engaged in forming their own party on the basis of one of the existing parties,” said Senchenko. He refused to name the “donor” party, though he pointed out that active preparation for holding a congress and drafting official statutory documents is underway.

Senchenko associates the formation of the new political force with the scandal during the last meeting of the political council of the Batkivshchyna party, when a number of deputies of the faction headed by Turchynov left the session after Yulia Tymoshenko refused to put forth the discussion of issues of a coalition agreement with political allies and Yatsenyuk’s first place on the electoral list.

Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov wrote on his webpage in Facebook yesterday that more than ten dozen members of the political council supported the demarche, among them ministers of the Cabinet and people’s deputies of the parliamentary faction. “I respect the opinion of my colleagues that believe the opposition to President Poroshenko is a greater benefit to the country. I understand the logic of their rejection and arguments. However, in the current situation this is not correct and not permissible. Unity is the only solution,” said Avakov.

Member of the political council of Batkivshchyna Volodymyr Yavorivskiy told Capital that Premier Arseniy Yatsenyuk was not invited to the scandalous session. In his words, “that was a mistake”. He also labels the demands of Turchynov and his proponents an ultimatum. “After the demand for half of the list and renaming of the party to United Batkivshchyna, a group of members of the political council left the session hall. This action will be assessed at the party’s congress scheduled for September 5,” he told the publication.

The participants of the party’s demarche refuse to comment on their decision and the format of their future participation in the parliamentary election campaign. Minister of Infrastructure Maksym Burbak, who also left the political council, stated that there is not split in the party. He assured that this was the “personal opinion of each member that must be proven”. “Somebody wants to benefit from the split of the party. We need to take a step back and think,” Burbak told Capital.

Party of negotiators

The relationship between Turchynov and Tymoshenko cooled back in the spring. Then sources of Capital in the Batkivshchyna faction said the reason for the negative reaction of the speaker of the parliament was the decision of the ex-premier to run in the presidential elections. Discord has recently become stronger when it came to the surface that Yatsenyuk and Turchynov began talks with the team of President Petro Poroshenko on their participation in the common electoral project. A source of Capital in the inner circles of the president said that the latest round of talks was held at beginning of this week. “Yatsenyuk's condition was that he gets 50% of the total list. He earlier put forth such conditions to Yulia Tymoshenko, but they were rejected. He also did not get the green light from us,” the source told. He said that Poroshenko personally rejected Yatsenyuk’s proposals, while Yuriy Lutsenko agreed to divide the electoral list with the premier.

Be that as it may, Yuriy Stets (Batkivshchyna) who is close to the president told Capital that the talks with Yatsenyuk continue. He also said that consultations with other parties are being held, including with Batkivshchyna. MP of Batkivshchyna Volodymyr Polochanninov, who earlier was a member of the Front of Changes, told Capital that Yatsenyuk and Turchynov may use the new party in their haggling with Tymoshenko for a place in the general electoral list. However, an interlocutor of the faction with Capital cast doubts of such a variant saying “the discord at the moment is too great and emotions rule.”

Noteworthy is that sociologists have already conducted a survey of the possible electoral support of the new party of Yatsenyuk and Turchynov. In the public opinion polls it was listed under the banner the People’s Bloc.