By Hugo Spaulding
Key Takeaway: Ukraine’s post-revolution leadership faces
an existential crisis on the second anniversary of the collapse of Russia’s
client regime in Kyiv, which transpired on February 21, 2014. The pro-Western
coalition lost its parliamentary majority at a moment of severe popular distrust
of President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Without
sustained efforts to support reform and combat corruption, Poroshenko faces the
prospect of mounting social unrest and the resurgence of Ukraine’s political
old guard.
Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko’s party triggered the disintegration of the pro-Western
four-party coalition by launching a failed vote of no confidence against
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on February 16. Poroshenko called
for Yatsenyuk’s resignation on the day of the vote after junior coalition
parties announced their unwillingness to work with the prime minister, threatening
to deadlock already stagnant efforts at economic and anti-corruption reform. The
“Fatherland” party of former Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko and the Western
Ukraine-based “Self Help” party defected to the opposition in response to the
failure of the no-confidence motion, which precludes another vote of no confidence until the next session of parliament begins in September. The withdrawal of the two junior parties
deprives the “European Ukraine” coalition of its majority in parliament and
takes it farther from the constitutional supermajority with which it began its
mandate.
The collapse of
the coalition is likely to ensure the continued stagnation of reforms necessary
to maintain vital financial support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
which signaled earlier this month that it would delay an assistance package worth $1.7 billion until the future of
the cabinet became clear. Russia’s continued military operations in the
southeastern Donbas region and economic pressure have also ensured that Ukraine’s
pro-Western government remains frail. A protracted political struggle, worsening
economic conditions, and the pro-reform elite and population’s hardening distrust
of Ukraine’s leaders threaten to spiral into widespread social unrest. Poroshenko may thus face a perfect storm on
the anniversary of sniper attacks on protestors in the final days of the
“Euromaidan” revolution.
President Poroshenko
called for Yatsenyuk’s resignation in response to mounting domestic and Western
pressure to kick-start Ukraine’s stalled anti-corruption and reform efforts.
The failed no-confidence motion follows the February 3 resignation of Lithuanian-born Economy Minister
Aivaras Abromavicius, who blamed pervasive corruption in the central government
and singled out Poroshenko allies for his departure. The resignation of
Abromavicius prompted new scrutiny over the fate of the cabinet, which is
divided between other foreign-born technocrats and coalition party officials.
Yatsenyuk in particular has faced heavy criticism for protecting the interests of oligarchs
at the expense of the reforms required to maintain IMF assistance and avoid
bankruptcy. On the day of the failed no-confidence vote, Poroshenko also called for the resignation of ally Prosecutor General Viktor
Shokin, widely accused of corruption. Poroshenko finally caved to long-standing
pressure to dismiss Shokin following the February 15 resignation of reformist Deputy Prosecutor General
Vitaly Kasko, who accused Shokin of blocking judicial reforms. Like
Poroshenko’s decision to push out Shokin from the judiciary, the president’s support
for the no-confidence motion against Yatsenyuk was likely an effort to deflect
criticism for failing to combat corruption and promote reform.
The manner in
which the no-confidence motion failed raises doubts over the sincerity of Poroshenko’s
intent to revise the political status quo, which is guided by oligarch
consensus. The motion against the widely unpopular prime minister and his
cabinet fell short of a parliamentary majority by 32 votes.
Despite Poroshenko’s call for the resignation of the cabinet and the initiation
of the motion by the president’s party, 39 MPs from his party were absent, abstained, or otherwise did not participate in the vote. The
majority of the pro-Russian “Opposition Bloc,” the successor of the ousted
Yanukovych regime’s “Party of Regions,” also walked out on the vote, depriving
the no-confidence motion of as many as 33 votes. A total of 41 MPs from the two
parties voted the same day to recognize the performance of the cabinet as unsatisfactory but stopped short of supporting the
no-confidence motion. Mustafa Nayyem, a prominent reformist MP from
Poroshenko’s party and an early supporter of the 2013-2014 “Euromaidan”
revolution, accused the president of colluding with rival oligarchs who support
the “Opposition Bloc” and Yatsenyuk to stage a failed no-confidence vote.
If Poroshenko
did intend to use the failed vote to defuse pressure to overhaul the cabinet
and cast himself as a champion of reform, this gamble appears to have backfired.
Neither the no-confidence motion nor the dismissal of Shokin from the judiciary
resolved the underlying driver of the political crisis. The failed vote of no
confidence appears to have instead exacerbated the public and reformist
political elite’s mistrust of Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk. Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk,
and Ukraine’s other pro-Western leaders will need to make sustained efforts to
crack down on corruption and support reform in order to restore this faith. The
resignation of Yatsenyuk and a cabinet reshuffle that introduces new
technocratic ministers is likely a prerequisite needed to prevent deepening
political gridlock from devolving into a new wave of social unrest.
Ukraine’s latest
political crisis may escalate in ways that place the survival of the current
Western-backed government at risk. Several hundred protestors
outside parliament called for Prime Minister Yatsenyuk’s resignation ahead of the
failed no-confidence vote, an early warning of the potential for the political status
quo to catalyze the population into demonstrations against the government. The
demonstrators included supporters of the far-right “Freedom” party, which
played a leading role in the August 31, 2015 riot that
resulted in three killed and over 100 injured. More dangerously, former Prime
Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko is poised to fuel the crisis to reassert herself as
a significant powerbroker in Kyiv. Tymoshenko called for snap elections to be held as soon as possible during an
early February visit to Washington, D.C., where she met with senior diplomats
and congressional leaders. All other party leaders from the former five-party
coalition have dismissed snap elections as only a course of last resort given
their potential to trigger further instability. Tymoshenko, a historical opportunist with a mercurial relationship with the
Kremlin, may find success at the ballots along with the pro-Russian “Opposition
Bloc” in the vacuum created by popular dissatisfaction with Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk. A strengthened position in parliament
for either Tymoshenko or the “Opposition Bloc” would further cement the already
lingering heritage of oligarch-driven politics and restore levers of Russian influence
in Kyiv.
Ukraine’s political
crisis coincides with escalating offensive operations by Russian-backed
separatist forces along the front line in the southeast. Ukraine has come under
increasing pressure from its Western backers to fulfill its
political concessions tied to the February 2015 “Minsk II” ceasefire agreement
despite the continued presence of forward-deployed Russian forces, weaponry,
and cyclically escalating indirect fire attacks on Ukrainian positions. These
concessions include the constitutional recognition of the “special status” of
the occupied southeastern territory, a proposed amendment that lacks support
outside Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk’s parties and sparked the August 31 riot. Populist
leader Oleh Lyashko, who participated in the riot and defected to the
opposition days later, offered to restore the coalition’s majority on February
18. Lyashko conditioned his return to the coalition, however, on the rejection of the “special status” clause in “Minsk
II,” a move that Russia would likely meet with further escalation. Russia has
deliberately made the fulfillment of the concessions politically untenable for
Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk by preserving its offensive posture in southeastern
Ukraine. By demanding the concessions in exchange for potential peace, Russia
has also led the West to continue prodding Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk into
supporting the measures that isolate them from their former coalition allies.
Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk can prevent the political crisis from spilling
onto the streets by showing genuine effort to move reforms forward and
combat corruption, starting within their own circles. A cabinet reshuffle and a
new coalition agreement will also be necessary but not likely sufficient to
prevent reforms from stalling further. The preservation of Yatsenyuk as prime
minister is likely to obstruct the return of Tymoshenko’s “Fatherland” and the
“Self Help” party to the coalition unless they are given significantly expanded
decision-making roles. Yatsenyuk would not likely need to resign to form a new
coalition with Poroshenko’s party and Oleh Lyashko’s “Radical Party,” however,
which have only demanded a cabinet reshuffle. Without the
introduction of a truly technocratic cabinet out of Yatsenyuk’s control, such a
coalition would nevertheless only harden public mistrust and political dividing
lines until a new no-confidence measure can be launched in September.
Despite the collapse of the coalition, a majority of MPs from all three
former coalition parties worked with Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko’s parties to pass
a key set of anti-corruption bills prescribed by the EU and IMF on February 18.
The passage of this legislation offers some hope that Ukraine’s pro-Western leaders
can overcome factional divides to support reform, however, they will need to
sustain these efforts to earn back the trust of the population. Emotions will be high as Ukraine
remembers the roughly 100 killed on Kyiv’s Independence Square (“Maidan Nezalezhnosti”) in the final days before Yanukovych’s
ousting on February 21, 2014. If post-revolution leaders in Kyiv fail to escape
the pull of political recidivism and make persistent efforts to reform,
Ukrainians may likewise slide back into a revolutionary mindset to protect the
legacy of “Euromaidan.”
