The new parliament will begin its work accompanied by squabbles inside the coalition

Photo: Ivan Chernichkin

Today, the Verkhovna Rada of the new convocation will hold its first session. During this session the formation of the coalition will be announced. Also, the voting for Arseniy Yatsenyuk as premier and Volodymyr Groysman as VR Speaker are planned. The deputies have not succeeded yet in agreeing on the election of the new government and the heads of committees.

Disputes about the most important issues

Yesterday, the last meeting of the preparatory group, which for the past week was busy preparing the work of the new parliament, was held. At the meeting the deputies had two issues on the agenda — seating of factions in the session hall and distribution of parliamentary committees. Initially, it was planned that it would take the group’s members 1.5 hours. However, even the discussion about the working places of the new deputies took more time. «The disputes went on for nearly two hours. Many factions went simply hysterical about the seating and many were dissatisfied with the agreements,» a source of Capital in the Radical Party commented on the disputes behind closed doors.

Representative of the People’s Front at the negotiations Pavlo Pynzenyk said that representatives of Samopomich expressed the greatest dissatisfaction with their seating. Deputy of Samopomich Yuriy Derevyanko told Capital that the force wanted to sit where the UDAR faction sat in the VR of the previous convocation (now it is the place of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc). When they were rejected, Samopomich demanded seats in the center of the session hall, where the deputies of the Radical Party should be. Then the leader of the Radical Party Oleh Lyashko expressed his discontent with such a proposal. In the end, Samopomich took the seats, where the Communist Party faction sat in the previous years.

After that the deputies moved to the issue of parliamentary committees, but only managed to approve their increase to 27. A source of Capital said that representatives of the Opposition Bloc Serhiy Lyovochkin and Vadym Novynskiy insisted on forming a committee on issues regarding the Donbas region, but the proposal was turned down.

In general, the meeting of the preparatory group lasted until late evening. The deputies still had not agreed on the distribution of positions in the committees, when the publication went to print. The uncompromising positions of PPB and the People’s Front are to blame. PPB wants to first elect the leadership of the VR and premier and only then move on to discussions regarding the composite of the government and leadership of parliamentary committees as envisaged by the Constitution. The People’s Front wants to form the coalition, only then will the government vote on the VR speaker," said Lyovochkin. A source in the People’s Front also confirmed this. «The president’s force only wants to elect Groysman and that’s it. There is nothing further to talk about. The candidacies of ministers have not been approved for the first session of the VR,» he said.

Representative of PF Serhiy Pashynskiy specified that there is an agreement to elect Yatsenyuk the new premier after the formation of the coalition on Thursday. However, there is no agreement about the composite of the government, the method of its formation and the time of its election in the VR.
Interestingly, of the future coalition members only Samopomich openly supported the position of PF. «We urge the coalition colleagues to remove all mutual precautions and act expeditiously. We can have a new speaker and a new Cabinet of Ministers by the end of the day,» the press service of Samopomich quoted its member Oleh Berezyuk.

Nowhere to rush

Batkivshchyna representative Andriy Kozhemyakin predicted that there will be no voting on the government today. «Looking at this entire process I expect that the government will be elected on Friday,» said Kozhemyakin. A source in the PPB, however, is less optimistic. «This will happen on Tuesday at best, although the process can be protracted for longer,» he said.

Noteworthy, yesterday the government resigned. Now a coalition needs to be formed, which will propose to the president the candidacy of the new premier. Earlier, Petro Poroshenko repeatedly stated that he sees Arseniy Yatsenuk in this position. This is one of the few staff decisions that have been coordinated between the members of the future coalition. Yesterday, the deputies also agreed to support the nomination of Groysman to the post of VR Speaker. However, the nominees for the positions of his deputies also were not agreed to.

«The struggle continues, including about the leadership of the parliament,» said a source in PPB. He said the coalition is considering the possibility of electing representative of the Opposition Bloc Oleksandr Vilkul to the post of vice speaker. The candidacy of the first vice speaker is being discussed by the president and the premier.