The winners of the parliamentary elections make a controversy over the forming of a coalition public

Arseniy Yatsenyuk opened a second front in the race for power

Photo: Reuters

Despite that prior to the elections the leaders of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and the People’s Front announced that they were ready to form a new coalition in the Verkhovna Rada as soon as possible, the negotiations on its formation hit a dead end. Both parties cannot decide not only on the text of the coalition agreement, but even accept the results of the elections as each of them considers themselves the winner.

Wide circle

Yesterday the Petro Poroshenko Bloc (PPB) party published a draft coalition agreement, commissioned by the president. The pro-presidential party decided to take such a step after the talks with the People’s Front on the joint formation of the parliamentary majority failed, according to Capital’s sources.

Also, a source of the publication familiar with the course of negotiations said the two sides could not agree on personnel issues inside the government. “The minister and ministry of internal affairs raised certain issues. The issue of the monitoring of the work of the government by the coalition and the president also remains unresolved. Poroshenko wants everything to be coordinated with the Presidential Administration, while Yatsenyuk wants to manage everything independently,” said the source.

He also noted that the PA decided to resume talks after the Central Election Commission announces the results of the elections in first-past-the-post constituencies. Ihor Kononenko, who was elected to the parliament from the list of the PPB and one of the members of the president’s inner circle, indirectly confirmed this information. “The elections are not over yet. The number of winners in our faction is still unclear and we published the agreement for open public debate in order to receive feedback,” said Kononenko. Capital’s source in the PPB says on Tuesday the draft coalition agreement was also sent to the Samopomіch party.

Shortly after the publication of the draft coalition agreement the Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk held a press conference at which he rejected the PPB’s version. He said the People’s Front considers itself to be the winner of the election and therefore has drafted its own version of the coalition agreement and even came up with a name for the new coalition – European Ukraine.

Yatsenyuk’s document is quite short – 2.5 pages of text, particularly if to compare with the president’s version containing 48 pages. The version presented by the premier includes 36 top-priority bills. In addition, Yatsenyuk spoke in favor of inclusion of the Radical Party and Batkivshchyna in the coalition talks, an also offered them to present their candidates for offices in the Cabinet by November 3. “I would like to publicly announce the fair start of the transparent and honest formation of the coalition and the government… I am convinced that the president will support such an initiative. If my initiative is not supported, then someone else will have to form the coalition,” said Yatsenyuk, adding that he had hoped to form a coalition within 20 days.

Request for allies

Yatsenyuk’s appeal received an immediate response from underdogs in the elections. Yesterday, leader of Batkivshchyna Yulia Tymoshenko announced her readiness to join the coalition even without ministerial portfolios. Later, Samopomich also published a statement that it is ready hold talks on this issue. Moreover, it supported Tymoshenko’s idea of drafting a new coalition agreement. “Coalition members shall have equal representation in governing bodies of the coalition. Coalition members shall have the right of veto on certain issues,” the party’s statement reads.

Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Radical Party Valeriy Voshchevskiy said his political force is ready to participate in talks on forming a coalition. “We are ready to discuss any framework of a coalition of democratic forces and are not demanding any posts for our members,” said Voshchevskiy. In his opinion, the right to form a coalition shall belong to the winner of the election, which, according Voshchevskiy, is the People’s Front party. “The current process of formation of the coalition is reminiscent of the opposition between Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko after the Orange Revolution. But I would like to believe that there will be no conflict and that public figures, who were in power at the time, learned their lesson and will not continue make the same mistakes,” Voshchevskiy stressed.

Nevertheless, Poroshenko’s side continues to stand its ground. The president’s envoy to his Peace Plan for Eastern Ukraine Iryna Herashchenko says the controversy over the coalition is the beginning of dialogue. “We are happy that we started dialogue on the essence of the work of the parliament, and not about posts in the government. We have eight days to approve the final text of the coalition agreement. The PPB is ready to become the foundation for the future coalition and is ready to accept all who share our principles and approaches,” she said in a conversation with Capital.

Capital’s source in the Presidential Administration acknowledges that the fact that Batkivshchyna and the Radical Party will join the negotiation process accrues to the benefit of the premier. “It is in this way that Yatsenyuk wants to reduce Poroshenko’s influence on the coalition. Noteworthy is that neither Lyashko, nor Tymoshenko are demanding seats in the government and fully support Yatsenyuk,” said the source.

At the same time, the source says the PA has arrangements with the Samopomich party regarding its entering into power. “They will get some offices,” said the source, refusing to name the specific posts. Another source in the PPB confirmed that part of the Samopomich party that previously focused on Head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast State Administration Ihor Kolomoiskiy is ready to cooperate with the president.

In a situation where both the president and the premier are not willing to compromise and have already won the support of their allies, the position of self-nominated deputies will be decisive. Most likely, they will be the ones to decide the actual winner of the parliamentary elections.