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Ukraine to face new elections if coalition talks fail — opposition leader

Yuri Boiko stressed that the Ukrainian people no longer had confidence in the incumbent parliament, coalition or government

KIEV, March 31 /TASS/. Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament) will be unable to create a new coalition and will push the country towards early parliamentary elections, Yuri Boiko, the head of the Opposition Bloc parliamentary faction, told journalists on Wednesday.

"For the moment, there is no coalition in the Rada because the leaders of the two biggest factions [the Pyotr Poroshenko Bloc and the People’s Front] cannot draw it together. It looks as if parliament is not going to have it in future. A way out of this situation should be constitutional - early elections to Verkhovna Rada and the creation of a new coalition, which will form a new government," the Ukrainian politician said.

Boiko stressed that the Ukrainian people no longer had confidence in the incumbent parliament, coalition or government, which have done everything to kill that trust over the past 18 months.

"Even today, the parliament’s agenda does not fully address people’s needs: ratifications and declarations but not a single law, which is really necessary. We do not see any budget amendments necessary for the indexation of salaries and pensions: any amendments to the Tax Code to support farmers or any other social laws. It is happening because the parliamentary majority does not have a common stance. They are bargaining for chairs and preoccupied with behind-the-wings games," Boiko said.

He is convinced that Ukraine will have to hold new parliamentary elections and form a new government soon.

Earlier, the Pyotr Poroshenko Bloc; the People’s Front of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Yulia Timoshenko’s Batkivshchina (Fatherland) failed to agree on creating a coalition in parliament. The negotiations came to a deadlock because of new demands from Batkivshchina.

According to the deputies, the People’s Front and the Pyotr Poroshenko Bloc are trying to create a parliamentary coalition for two. "It is the last chance to preserve this Verkhovna Rada and not to throw the country into six months of upheaval and elections," Viktoria Syumar, one of the People’s Front leaders, told journalists on Wednesday.

The Pytor Poroshenko Bloc has confirmed that the teams of the president and the prime minister are getting ready to form a coalition of two factions plus a number of deputies who are not members of any faction.

"Let’s hope that the leaders of the Pyotr Poroshenko Bloc and the People’s Front will show enough sense and reason not to invite the former members of the Party of Regions to the coalition," deputy Mustafa Nayem (the Pyotr Poroshenko Bloc), said.

He added that Batkivshchina (Fatherland), Samopomoch (Self-Help) and the Radical party are pushing the presidential and premier’s factions to cooperation with the opposition. Samopomoch has said it will support Finance Minister Natalya Yaresko to the prime minister’s post but will not enter any coalition. The Radical party is waiting for everything to collapse and hopes to return to parliament in exchange for the speaker’s post.

The Batkivchina party, according to Nayem, has put forward absolutely populist demands, some of which are contradicting what Yulia Timoshenko and her faction said and signed a year ago.

He described Timoshenko’s position as blackmail and added that Batkivshchina’s leader had already started her election campaign.