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Radical party leader calls Poroshenko election as Ukraine’s president greatest mistake

According to Oleh Lyashko, the Radical Party went into the opposition to the government in order to "stop the catastrophe to which Poroshenko is leading Ukraine"
Ukraine's Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko ITAR-TASS/Maxim Nikitin
Ukraine's Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko
© ITAR-TASS/Maxim Nikitin

KIEV, September 7. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has become the head of all corruption in the country and is the main oligarch, the leader of the Radical Party, Oleh Lyashko, said on Monday.

"The Radical Party quit the coalition because Poroshenko’s election as Ukraine’s president was the biggest mistake of Ukrainians since the Dignity Revolution [Maidan]. And for that mistake the society is paying a very high price," he wrote on his Facebook page.

Maidan is the name for central Kiev’s Independence Square, which is the symbol of Ukrainian protests. The words "Maidan" and "Euromaidan" are used as a collective name for anti-government protests in Ukraine that started after the then President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign an association agreement with the European Union in late 2013.

Lyashko also said that the Ukrainian president was fully responsible for the bloodshed at the Verkhovna Rada (national parliament) building — where 3 people were killed and more than 140 people injured in recent clashes with police.

According to him, the Radical Party went into the opposition to the government in order to "stop the catastrophe to which Poroshenko is leading Ukraine."

On Sunday, the Ukrainian president commented on the withdrawal of Lyashko and his political force from the parliamentary coalition. According to Poroshenko, if the Radical Party declared its withdrawal from the coalition, it’s up to it to choose. "I think that the oligarchs are also involved here," he said.

Poroshenko also said he was certain that the coalition in the Verkhovna Rada "is only a tool to save the country, and saving the country is more important than saving the coalition."

On September 1, Lyashko said the Radical Party led by him was quitting the ruling coalition in the national parliament because of disagreement with the draft constitutional reform proposed by the Ukrainian president. This political force had 21 vote in the coalition’s total 302. Therefore, more than 226 deputies remain in the coalition, which is enough for almost any decision-making in the parliament, except for matters concerning the Constitution change, which requires the constitutional majority, i.e. 300 votes of the lawmakers.