Andriy Shevchenko: ax of illegitimacy hangs over new government

People’s Deputy Andriy Shevchenko (BYuT) expects the Constitutional Court to rule that changes to parliamentary regulations on coalition forming are unconstitutional.

"From a legal point of view, it’s clear that the coalition was formed unconstitutionally. And an ax of illegitimacy has hung over the new government since it first started working and it will hang at least until the Constitutional Court, which I don’t doubt, confirms yet again that the coalition was created unconstitutionally," Andriy Shevchenko said.

The parliamentarian recalled that the Constitutional Court has already reviewed a similar appeal. "The role of the Constitutional Court is to explain once how to read the Constitution. It has already done this and said that a coalition is formed by factions. End of story. The logic is very simple: people vote for parties, and parties in the Verkhovna Rada agree on a joint government. The team of Yanukovych and Azarov bought time in a very dishonest way to continue working while waiting for the decision by the Constitutional Court," he believes.

"Parliament and the country will face a choice following the decision by the Constitutional Court: either a legitimate coalition will be formed in parliament, or early elections should be held. Otherwise, we are cheating the people. And most importantly, the coalition stuffed together this way isn’t capable of carrying out systematic reform, and won’t have the support of a large number of people," Andriy Shevchenko concluded.

As reported, on March 9, with 235 votes, parliament adopted a law amending article 61 of the law of Ukraine on rules of parliament allowing a coalition to be formed by individual deputies and not just factions.

On March 10, President Viktor Yanukovych signed the law and it went into effect on March 11 after being published in the parliamentary newspaper Holos Ukrainy and Cabinet of Ministers publication Uriadovy Kurier.

That same day, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn announced the creation of the ‘stability and reform’ coalition of 235 deputies, comprised of the Party of Regions, Communist party, Lytvyn Bloc, and 16 deputies from other parliamentary groups.