Rada dismisses Sobolev as anti-corruption committee head

Ukraine’s parliament (Verkhovna Rada) voted on Dec. 7
to dismiss Yegor Sobolev as head of the parliamentary anti-corruption committee.
The vote was supported by those forces who have backed the president in his
conflict with Ukraine’s reformers, who are backed by the Western establishment.
The 256 votes were offered by 108 MPs of the Poroshenko Bloc, 65 MPs of the
pro-EU People’s Front, 32 MPs of the Russian-oriented Opposition Bloc, 15 MPs
of the populist Radical Party, 17 MPs of the oligarch-backed Renaissance group
and 13 MPs from the oligarch-backed Will of the People group. They cited his
unsatisfactory work in which parliamentary procedures were repeatedly violated.
Besides being an MP from the Self-Reliance party, Sobolev has been among the
leaders of the Rada Maidan tent city protest in front of Ukraine’s parliament.

Afterwards, Sobolev wore his dismissal as a badge of honor.
“I am the first head of the anti-corruption committee in Ukraine’s history to
have been removed from his post,” he said, as reported by Interfax-Ukraine. “I
was removed by a corrupt president and coalition government. I believe this to
be the best recognition of the effectiveness of my work.” He claimed credit for
leading the committee to halt 400 bills that had signs of corruption. “I am a
big problem for them,” he said, as reported by the hromadskeradio.org news
site. “And that same Anti-Corruption Court is a big risk for them because
they’ll end up in prison. And e-declarations are a catastrophe and eternal
challenge.”

Zenon Zawada: On the
Ukrainian political scene, the 40-year-old Sobolev represents the rising
vanguard of Western-oriented politicians committed to rule of law and liberal
reforms, while the 52-year-old Poroshenko represents the post-Soviet oligarchic
class clinging to its ill-gotten wealth, being utterly fearful and resistant to
these liberal reforms.

So while Sobolev might have lost this battle (we
believe it will only add to his public support and popularity), he and his
allies will win the war against Poroshenko. We can easily see Sobolev emerging
as a prime minister in the next decade, and possibly sooner.

It’s also worth noting that the Opposition Bloc
voted in alignment with the president’s faction. This adds more evidence to our
view that Poroshenko fears the pro-Western reformers more than he does the
Russian-oriented parties, which are led by oligarchs and have a similar agenda
to Poroshenko. So Poroshenko will try to frame the 2019 presidential election
to face a Russian-oriented opponent. We expect many Western-aligned forces will
attempt to disrupt this scenario.