Ukraine Cabinet gets a six-month immunity in opportunistic Rada vote

Ukraine’s parliament (Rada) voted on Feb. 16 to declare as unsatisfactory the Cabinet of Ministers’ performance in 2015 but failed to muster enough votes for its dismissal. The Rada mobilized 247 votes (with 226 being a majority) to declare the performance of the government in 2015 “unsatisfactory”, though, this declaration had no legal consequences.

In a more important vote for a declaration of no-confidence in the Cabinet (which would result in the dismissal of the Cabinet) the Rada managed to collect only 194 votes, falling 32 votes short of the needed majority. It was supported by 97 out of 136 Poroshenko Bloc MPs, 25 out of 26 Self-Reliance MPs, 15 out of 21 Radical Party MPs and 15 out of 19 Fatherland party MPs. It was rejected by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front party, the Opposition Bloc sponsored by magnate Rinat Akhmetov and two MP groups representing big business – Renaissance and Will of the People.

With this failed vote, Yatsenyuk’s government gained an interim immunity – the next no-confidence vote can be held no earlier than in September.

After the failed vote, Fatherland Party Head Yulia Tymoshenko declared that the coalition government doesn’t exist and recalled its single Cabinet member. However, she didn’t declare the party’s departure from the coalition. As his reaction, Poroshenko Bloc Parliamentary Faction Head Yuriy Lutsenko said the Cabinet doesn’t have parliament’s support to conduct reforms and must undergo a “deep reformatting.”

Zenon Zawada: What’s most significant about the day’s events is that Yatsenyuk will remain as prime minister for at least half a year. Ironically, as bad as this government has performed, it seems as though Poroshenko has satisfied the West in keeping it in place, with some possible fine-tuning in the near future. That bodes well for Ukraine’s short-term financial stability – the IMF’s soon tranche of USD 1.7 bln becomes very likely now. Poroshenko at the same time satisfied Western demands in announcing (though not yet securing) Shokin’s resignation, which seems to open the way for Ukraine to receive a USD 1.0 bln loan from the U.S. government.

Yet yesterday’s votes also show that the current Cabinet won’t have any support from the Rada in any of its initiatives. That means ongoing infighting, corruption scandals and resistance to various reforms, all of which the president is also responsible for.

Despite their rivalry, Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko have a remarkable knack for cooperating when it comes to divvying up illicit revenue streams and covering for their corruption schemes. Poroshenko played a sly hand in shifting blame for keeping the Cabinet in place onto the parliament. The reality is he needs Yatsenyuk as prime minister, who poses no threat to his authority and shares the same penchant for shady schemes.

We look forward to see the reaction of the ministers who earlier declared their demands to parliament, aimed at speeding up reform (Andriy Pyvovarskiy, Natalie Jaresko). Now there’s little chance that the Rada will become more cooperative, as they demanded. Meanwhile, the probability has decreased that Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius, who earlier filed a resignation request, will come back to this semi-legitimate Cabinet.