Ukraine has two weeks to form technocratic gov’t, Lutsenko says

Ukraine’s parliament has two weeks to form a technocratic coalition government, reported on March 2 Yuriy Lutsenko, the parliamentary faction head of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, following a closed meeting with leaders of the European Parliament and European Commission.

European business is becoming exhausted from the sanctions on Russia amid economic downturn and is receptive to Putin’s arguments, he wrote on his Facebook page. During the next two to three months, the government should remove all party and oligarch appointments from the biggest state monopolies and remove corrupt overseers from customs, Lutsenko said. “Otherwise – fiasco. Brussels won’t believe our tears,” he wrote.

Zenon Zawada: Before a new Cabinet emerges, a new coalition must be formed. The most likely scenario we see is the two biggest factions, Poroshenko Bloc and People’s Front (led by Prime Minister Yatsenyuk), forming a coalition with Oleh Liashko’s Radical Party. These negotiations have proved fruitless so far and that could be the result of Liashko biding his time to get the most concessions. He reportedly wants to become parliamentary speaker, which we view as entirely possible. Should this coalition emerge, a technocrat government can be formed and led by Natalie Jaresko, the Chicago-born banker who has earned international acclaim during her tenure as finance minister.

The second-most likely scenario, in our view, is a coalition re-emerging between the five pro-Western factions, who agree to overlook past disagreements and work under a technocratic government. Far less likely are two scenarios, the first involving a coalition between the Poroshenko Bloc, the People’s Front and the Russian-oriented Opposition Bloc. The People’s Front would be willing to form this coalition since it has no chance of returning to parliament in the next elections. Yet many of the MPs of the Poroshenko Bloc would be highly reluctant, including the president himself, who is concerned about re-election. An equally unlikely fourth scenario is the president dismissing the parliament and calling early elections. This option is just as undesirable for the president as it will only swell the ranks of his opposition in parliament.