“It can be said openly that the Supreme Council has disintegrated. What is happening in the parliament is a big political game,” Danylo Hetmancev, chairman of the finance committee, admitted to the Ukrainian portal TSN.
“As far as I know, several dozens of deputies have already announced their resignations, they want to give up their mandates… Maybe 50-60 people,” Zelenskiy Party deputy Servant of the Nation Oleksandr Yurchenko told the Novyny.Live server.
He cited a long term of office, fatigue and a “low salary of 50,000 hryvnias” as reasons, which translates to about 960 euros (the average gross salary in Ukraine is about 460 euros).
“Parliament has been in office for almost seven years. I’m not saying it’s difficult or exhausting, but even the pickles in the barrel would turn sour during that time,” the Ukrainska Pravda portal quoted an unnamed member of the ruling party.
Gambling with the state
The media and experts describe the situation in the “Supreme Council” as a parliamentary crisis, collapse or paralysis. At the beginning, it looked promising.
When Zelensky’s party won over 43 percent of the vote in the July 2019 elections, it took up to 254 out of 450 seats in the parliament, so it had a comfortable majority and could form a one-color government – for the first time in history.
Later, however, the situation worsened, especially after the major Russian invasion in February 2022. Meanwhile, the “Servants of the Nation” faction has shrunk to 228 members. Although this still represents a narrow majority of three votes, in reality it remains only on paper.
The government cannot rely on its support, and the vice-chairman of the faction Andrij Motovylovec even revealed to the weekly Forbes that today he can confidently count on only 111 deputies.
The parliament hall often yawns empty, so it does not have a quorum. Its members use various excuses to justify their non-participation.
The member of the opposition party Hlas Jaroslav Železňak, for example, claimed in February that they did not meet the necessary quorum for the meeting (226 present) because several were on a business trip and others were said to have suffered mass food poisoning in the parliamentary canteen.
The Supreme Council then ordered an investigation into the case. The staff of the Center for Preventive Medicine inspected the canteen, checked the staff, food, drinking water and the food preparation process, but they did not find any deficiencies. It is no wonder that after this “work done”, only 12 percent of the population trusts the parliament.
The problem is that if Zelenskyi and the government want to push through something, the opposition must help them. Sometimes very important things are involved – be it key laws or financial aid from abroad.
This became clear in mid-March. As Bloomberg pointed out at the time, Kyiv risked losing funds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The half-empty parliament was not able to vote the legislation on the new IMF loan program so that Ukraine would receive a package of 8.1 billion dollars. And this despite the fact that she only had time to do it until the end of March. The elected “servants of the nation” actually gambled with the financial stability of the state.
Paralyzed by fear
Why are MPs so disgusted? Many talk about the political pressures and tensions between Zelensky and the Supreme Council.
They also complain that they are already tired of approving “endless regulations” issued by the cabinet of Julija Svyrydenková. It is said that some are offended that the president and the government consider them only “buttons” that must vote on everything they order.
“Parliament is rebelling and saying that it’s not just the copy machine or the accounting office where the salaries go – to approve the budget so that everyone gets paid. Some decent deputies have burned out over the years, exhausted themselves financially, because their families were not ready for more than one term,” political scientist Oleh Saakyan explained to the independent Nastojašcheje vremya television.
Read more Zelensky’s moral defeat. Did he protect his people accused of corruption?
A big part of the MPs’ frustration is also the constant fear of not being accused of something. According to Prosecutor General Oleksandr Klymenko, they are now conducting an investigation against 41 members of parliament who are suspected of corruption.
Some were to have advantages for supporting the government, others for voting against. They were allegedly bribed by former prime minister and opposition politician Julija Tymoshenko, who is also being investigated.
As Motovylovec assessed, it caused such concern in the Supreme Council that some legislators no longer want to make decisions at all. They are said to be afraid of attracting the attention of anti-corruption authorities – regardless of how they vote. “We have a perfect storm in the faction,” he commented on the situation for Forbes magazine.
“When I gather votes in the parliament, I have a clear idea of which deputies are ready to support a specific law. After NABU and SAPO (anti-corruption authorities, editor’s note) raised suspicions against five deputies of the Servant of the Nation party, it is increasingly difficult. Many other deputies were summoned for questioning. After that, it was not possible to find enough votes in the parliament even for important laws,” he explained Motor hunter.
However, according to Nastojaščeje vremja television, there is no reason for MPs to panic. The fact that the Supreme Council is paralyzed and does not function as it should cannot be blamed on the excessive efforts of anti-corruption authorities.
“The crime of which NABU and SAPO accuse several deputies is the systematic acceptance of illegal benefits – from 2,000 to 20,000 dollars per month,” the television interpreted the investigators’ position. So the issue was that they accepted bribes, not how they voted.
Zelensky: Go to the front
What should be done to get the paralyzed parliament moving again? The best solution would be new elections, which the USA and Russia demand from Kyiv, but that would be against the constitution. In order for free and democratic elections to be held, the war would first have to end or at least a cease-fire.
However, Ukraine will have to adopt laws that should help it get financial aid and EU membership. If the parliament is not able to meet these demands (lately, almost every session ends prematurely), according to critics, it is playing with the future of the entire country.
Read more Traitors or victims? How Ukraine “hunts” collaborators
In the Supreme Council, therefore, the creation of a new coalition is said to be increasingly persistent, this time with opposition parties as well. In addition, Zelenskyj again threatened to be drafted into the army.
“Either the deputies will serve in the parliament according to the law, or I am ready to negotiate with them on the law to change the mobilization so that they can go to the front. If you do not serve the state in the parliament, then serve it at the front,” the Interfax-Ukraine agency quoted him as saying.
