Ukraine parliamentary coalition yet to register majority

The parliamentary coalition formed by the two largest factions – the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and the People’s Front party – consists of 230 MPs, four more than the majority needed, said on April 18 Andriy Parubiy, the parliament’s speaker.  He said he included among its ranks two MPs who were evicted from the Self-Reliance faction but haven’t joined any faction since. As of this morning, 220 MPs are members of these two parliamentary factions that form the basis of the de facto coalition, reported the rada.gov.ua news site.

The Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU), a Western-financed NGO, issued an April 18 statement calling upon the Central Election Commission (CEC) to hold early elections for five parliamentary seats vacated by MPs. In the statement, the CVU urged the Central Election Commission to formally request the necessary documents from the parliament. Of these five MPs, two were elected mayors, two were appointed to the Cabinet last week while a fifth died.

Zenon Zawada: Parubiy is stretching legal bounds when including in the coalition two MPs who aren’t members of the two factions forming this de facto coalition. That logic is based on the previous coalition of five pro-Western factions still being in place on a de jure basis, which is also stretching the bounds of the law. Though these two MPs are no longer members of the Self-Reliance faction (which formed the previous coalition), he claims they can still be counted as part of the de jure coalition.

Such acrobatics indicate that it hasn’t been smooth recruiting MPs to the new coalition (between the two largest factions). Neither will Parubiy be able to recruit the needed MPs from the five vacated seats. We expect this coalition’s legitimacy to be cast under doubt, particularly by the opposition, if Parubiy fails to announce 226 officially registered MPs between both factions by the end of today’s session.