Three of five factions in Ukraine parliament coalition support budget vote

Ukraine’s parliamentary coalition offered 233 votes to approve the 2015 central state budget on the early morning of Dec. 29, seven votes more than the 226-vote majority needed. Only three of the five factions that make up the parliamentary coalition had a majority of its MPs support the vote. The pro-presidential Petro Poroshenko Bloc offered 120 out of its 150 votes and the People’s Front led by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk offered 81 out of its 82 votes, reported the Ukrayinska Pravda news site.

The third-largest faction, the Self-Reliance party, offered only 10 out of its 32 votes, Oleh Liashko’s Radical Party offered 17 out if its 22 votes and five independent MPs voted in favor. The pro-Putin Opposition Bloc offered none of its 40 votes, as well as the pro-NATO Fatherland Party, which offered none of its 19 votes.

Pro-Western, reform-oriented MPs criticized the vote, which occurred at about 4:20 a.m. on Monday morning. They said no MP has seen the revised 2015 budget, describing it essentially as a blank document that was given to the Cabinet to fill in. Igor Lutsenko, a Fatherland MP, described the vote as “a crime against the Constitution” that “destroys the foundation of the state.”

Regarding the votes held on Dec. 28 for more than a dozen amendments to the tax and budget codes, Parliamentary Faction Head Yuriy Boyko of the pro-Putin Opposition Bloc said they were approved in violation of parliamentary rules and called them unconstitutional, vowing to file complaints with the Constitutional Court. MPs didn’t have copies of the agenda nor the bills themselves, he said. “Everything that has been lobbed at MPs who approved the Jan. 16 laws is truly fairy tales compared to what happened in parliament today,” he said. (Recall the previous convocation voted on Jan. 16, 2014 to impose severe restrictions on the basic freedoms of Ukrainians.)

Zenon Zawada: It was certainly a chaotic scene in parliament during the last 24 hours. We can’t blame the dissenting coalition factions and MPs for not supporting the legislation, simply for the reason that it was approved in egregious violation of parliamentary rules. The budget’s approval was originally planned for Dec. 30, which means that more time could have been on discussion. On the other hand, that would have provided a platform for MPs in front of cameras to make populist statements exploiting public fears, which would have been counterproductive. Yet some compromise should have been reached.

It’s been little more than a month after the coalition was formed (after more than a month of squabbling and jockeying for positions), and it’s already fallen into de facto status. We believe the Self-Reliance and Fatherland factions didn’t offer their support for the budget because they believe they will gain greater political dividends from being in opposition to the coalition leaders. That also means that they don’t expect this government will succeed. Meanwhile, we believe the Radical Party MPs gained from some kind of trade for their support, which they repeatedly threatened to withhold.

The situation is particularly embarrassing when the violations make someone as scandalous as Boyko, an oligarch with a long history of alleged corruption, appear as a defender of rule of law and democratic principles. It was understood that the post-Maidan leaders would confront difficult challenges after getting elected. They’ve shown they haven’t been able to overcome them. We expect extreme political turbulence in 2015 that has the potential to dislodge President Poroshenko and PM Yatsenyuk from their positions in power.