Anti-constitutional rules for new parliamentary coalition creation

Arseniy Yatseniuk, leader of the Front for Change political party, says that the move of the Party of Regions, Communist Party and the Volodymyr Lytvyn Bloc, which voted in the first reading amendments to the Law on Verkhovna Rada Regulations, to add to the law the provision that a parliamentary coalition may consists of not only factions but also individual deputies on Thursday, was unconstitutional.

The politician emphasized that, under the Constitution, a new coalition must be created by exclusively parliamentary factions rather than a parliamentary majority. "There will be no coalition of cemetery vote. Or a coalition of parliamentary factions will be set up in exclusively constitutional way, or there will be early parliamentary elections," Yatseniuk stated. The author of the bill supported on March 4 by 229 votes, Party of Regions' MP Valeriy Bondyk produced a sharply negative reaction to the remarks that his initiative goes in conflict with the Constitution, and advised that those who disagree would address the Constitutional Court. BYT faction leader Ivan Kyrylenko called the voting for change of the "rules of the game" for the formation of a coalition as a "constitutional overturn." As reported, a new parliamentary majority must consist of factions with minimum 226 people's deputies. Thus, a constitutional majority of the Party of Regions faction (172 MPs), Communist Party faction (27 MPs) and the Lytvyn bloc faction (20 MPs) lacks mandates. The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc has already declared its switch to the opposition, and a part of the split Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense bloc faction agrees to partake in the coalition only on condition of Viktor Yushchenko's premiership.