Ukrainian parliament prepares to vote for new prime minister
 Ukraine’s parliament is due to vote on a new prime minister on Thursday, amid hopes a lengthy political crisis that has paralysed the government and worried Kiev’s western allies will come to an end. After days of negotiations on who should fill his cabinet, the parliamentary speaker, Volodymyr Groysman, was backed by the two biggest parties after earlier appearing to have agreed to take on the role. “The situation is very difficult,” he said on Wednesday. “But the time has come for us to assume responsibility ... I think we have reached a format that may be acceptable, responsible and capable of leading our country out of crisis.” Ukraine's prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk quits His public support ratings are extremely low, and in February he was physically picked up and carried out of parliament by an angry MP after narrowly surviving a no confidence vote. Both Yatsenyuk’s government and the president, Petro Poroshenko, have faced declining popular approval as the country struggles to break the grip of oligarchs and corruption on its economy. Critics said the protracted negotiations over the makeup of the new government were a sign that political players were putting their own interests above that of the country. Groysman is seen as a protege of Poroshenko, but the 38-year-old is apparently trying to build his own power base. “Negotiations on the new cabinet are becoming a farce ... patience has a limit,” the interior minister, Arsen Avakov, tweeted on Tuesday. “The birth of this new government is taking such a long time it seems like it will have to be done with a C-section, and the surgery is being performed under strict instructions from Washington,” said Victoria Voytsitska, an MP with the Samopomich party, which called for a number of reforms to be made before it would agree to back Groysman’s nomination as leader. The US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, said on Tuesday that international aid to the country was dependent on a new government being appointed. “It’s not just US assistance, but assistance from the IMF, assistance from the European Union. All of this depends on the identification of a new cabinet with clear reform credentials, and in the case of the United States, continued progress on other critical reform benchmarks,” said Pyatt. The IMF has recently halted the disbursement of a major bailout programme until a stable government is formed. Poroshenko came to power after the Maidan revolution promising a new kind of politics, but focus on reform has also been derailed by the ongoing conflict with a Russia-backed separatist movement in the east of the country. Critics, however, say the Russian aggression is a useful excuse for the president, a billionaire steeped in the old ways of doing business. Poroshenko has been criticised for failing to sell his companies, and his reputation took a further hit when it was revealed by the Guardian and other newspapers that he set up an offshore account for assets as his army fought with the Russia-backed separatists. Poroshenko has denied repeatedly that he was trying to evade tax through the arrangement. The economy minister, Aivaras Abromavičius, a Lithuanian brought into government for his reformist credentials, resigned earlier this year and accused the government of lacking real will to fight against corruption. It is believed the reformist finance minister, Natalia Yaresko, who led negotiations with the IMF, may not have a place in the new government. MPs are due to vote on Groysman’s nomination on Thursday, with the presidential faction believing it has enough support to secure a narrow victory. Poroshenko is keen to avoid an impasse that would lead to early parliamentary elections, as his sliding approval ratings would likely leave him with much less support in parliament. |
