The president and premier agreed on a candidate for speaker of the Verkhovna Rada

On Thursday, at the first session of the new parliament, MPs intend to elect the leadership of the parliament. Candidates for the offices of the speaker and vice speaker were not officially discussed by members of the coalition the day before the vote. President Petro Poroshenko and Premier Arseniy Yatsenyuk did it for them having agreed on the candidate between each other.

On Thursday, at the first session of the new parliament, MPs intend to elect the leadership of the parliament. Candidates for the offices of the speaker and vice speaker were not officially discussed by members of the coalition the day before the vote. President Petro Poroshenko and Premier Arseniy Yatsenyuk did it for them having agreed on the candidate between each other.

VR in lieu of the Cabinet

The People’s Front party agreed on the candidacy of Volodymyr Groysman for the office of Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, according to Capital’s source in the Presidential Administration. «On Tuesday, the People’s Front finally agreed to support Groysman’s candidacy for the position of the speaker of the parliament. This is the agreement between the president and the premier. Of course, there is the will of Yatsenyuk, who wants to distance his rival as far away as possible. There has never been a case in the history of Ukraine when the speaker of the parliament became the premier,» the source of Capital said, adding that officially the decision should be approved at the meeting of the People’s Front faction, which will take place in Kyiv today. «So far, no agreement has been made regarding the minister of internal affairs,» the source stated.

Yesterday, Oleksandr Turchynov, as the head of the central headquarters of the party, sent a message to all future MPs in the faction asking them to appear in the nation’s capital this morning where the issue of the parliamentary leadership will be discussed publicly. This was confirmed by MP of the People’s Front Leonid Yemets. «At the moment, I cannot confirm that agreements on the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada have been reached. Tomorrow, we will discuss this issue and elect the leaders of our faction,» he said.

Earlier, the president’s team saw Groysman, who currently holds the position of Vice Premier, as the head of the Cabinet. But after the pro-presidential party was unable to achieve the expected result in the parliamentary elections, the president was forced to agree to Yatsenyuk’s premiership.

Deficit of deputies

MP to be Andriy Senchenko said the Batkivshchyna party would support the candidacy of Groysman. «He is good enough for us. We will not nominate any candidates for senior offices in the parliament in order not to drag out the process and ensure that the parliament can begin functioning as soon as possible,» he said. Senchenko also confirmed that as of Tuesday evening the coalition has not officially considered the candidacy of the future leader of the parliament.

Representative of the Radical Party Ihor Mosiychuk also said that the political power will support Groysman and would not go after any positions of his deputies. «We are more interested in managing a number of parliamentary committees,» he assured.

The leader of the electoral list of the Samopomich party Hanna Hopko said that yesterday evening the party sent invitations to its coalition allies to discuss the issue of staffing. «We sent them invitations to the meeting in the parliament at 9:00 pm, so that there could be no backroom deals,» she explained. The results of the meeting were not announced, when the issue went to print.