Poroshenko warns of attempts to force early parliamentary elections

Politicians in Russia and Ukraine are organizing protests in order to force early parliamentary elections, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said in his Unity Day speech on Jan. 22. He vowed to fight against attempts to destabilize the country. He added that this will be the year that a large part of the Ukrainian public will feel the reforms that he began after his election in 2014.

Zenon Zawada: We share the widely-held view that early parliamentary elections would worsen Ukraine’s situation in all spheres and destabilize the country. However, the highly unpopular Poroshenko doesn’t need to worry since the leading opposition forces – the populist pro-Western Fatherland party and the Russian-oriented Opposition Bloc – have little support themselves. Absent a base of popular support, they will hardly be able to force early elections, as they had tried in the past year to no success.