Week’s milestones. Coalition running in circles, guidebook, and Shevtsov incident

Rada is proving unable to change qualitatively the principles of its work / Photo from UNIAN

The Verkhovna Rada continues to disappoint. The three-week pause has not reflected positively on the efficiency of the legislators who continue imitating actual work. The bill on e-declaration of income by officials, which was amended under huge pressure from the EU cab hardly be regarded a breakthrough. There are also quite a lot of questions regarding the special confiscation bill, praised by the pro-Yatsenyuk People's Front.

Unfortunately, the Rada of the eighth convocation is proving unable to change qualitatively the principles of its work, and doesn’t care a fig for the adoption of really important decisions. The political crisis, which already lasts for over a month, is turning into a handy screen aimed to cover the lawmaker’s inaction. Against this background, angry diatribes by pro-presidential BPP faction leader Yuriy Lutsenko are rather entertaining than threatening: he is hardly capable of taking the situation under full control. A perfect proof is a postponement until late March of the vote for the resignation of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, although it was the President who initiated Shokin’s dismissal as part of settling the political crisis. In this situation, the question has become rhetorical whether the Ukrainian authorities have an opportunity to “festina lente,” or hurry slowly.

Not only has Yatsenyuk managed to impose conditions for his resignation (to see a successor with support of Rada majority), he has also publicly pledged to put a stop to the state-owned companies being the main source of corrupt income for politicians. It remains a mystery though, why Yatsenyuk decided to announce such move as late as two years into his premiership.

Some familiar names are in a short-list of nominees for the premiership: Volodymyr Groysman and Natalie Jaresko.

It will not be easy for Rada Speaker to become head of government for many reasons, among which the key one is the lack of his own team and his proximity to the president. The Minister of Finance stressed that she has no ambitions to become a prime minister, but if her new Homeland’s parliament backs her nomination, the IMF requirements will definitely become the base of the government program. It should be noted that the current government has not given up on cooperation with the IMF, but at the same time, it cannot operate effectively.

Borys Lozhkyn has presented his book / Photo from UNIAN

Meanwhile, President’s Chief of Staff Borys Lozhkyn held a luxurious presentation of his book, which, however, hardly raised public interest in it. The head of the presidential administration truly believes that his imperishable work in cooperation with editor Vladimir Fedorin will be a solid argument for Ukraine in its dialogue with Europe. This idea cannot be completely ruled out; the main thing is to set realistic goals. Unfortunately, the issue of Ukraine’s integration into the EU remains on the long-term agenda, and that Ukrainian politicians have yet to realize.

What happened with the suspended chief of the National Police in Vinnytsia region, Anton Shevtsov, may become that last straw that breaks the camel’s back. The failure to ensure due to a procedural error the arrest of the law enforcer charged with high treason, in a country being in war for so long, is  like teasing the public. Even without this case, the calls for lynching as a way to resolve the problems were already voiced far too often for the authorities to ignore such incidents.

Yevgeny Magda