Ukraine speaker calls for renewing five-faction coalition

Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Hroisman called for renewing the coalition government that was formed in December 2014 between the five pro-Western factions that were elected to parliament (out of six total factions). “I believe the coalition is supposed to be created, or reformatted, or reconfigured by those factions that belong to the ‘European Ukraine’ coalition,” he told the 1+1 television network on March 3.

Oleh Liashko, the head of the Radical Party, told reporters on March 3 that he has not discussed “in the last week” forming the new coalition government with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk nor President Petro Poroshenko. “The government is continuing to imitate the old coalition,” he said. The Radical Party is the fifth-largest faction in parliament and has the ability to form the next coalition with the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front party. Liashko claims to have left the coalition in early September, though certain MPs claim it wasn’t done officially.

Zenon Zawada: As we correctly forecasted, the most likely scenario in resolving the need to form a new coalition involving the Poroshenko Bloc, the People’s Front and the Radical Party. The other likely scenario involves resurrecting the previous coalition based on the five pro-Western factions.

As for the pause, we think Liashko was being tough on the negotiations last week (wanting to become speaker) and the president’s team has responded in kind by blowing him off, for now at least. Meanwhile, Hroisman’s proposal of renewing the five-faction coalition is possible if they all agree to form a Cabinet consisting largely of technocrats, led by Natalie Jaresko, the current finance minister.