All news

Ukraine ex-premier offers Yatsenyuk to swap places to remedy situation

Mykola Azarov suggested to make a bet saying he will correct all the mistakes of Arseniy Yatsenyuk in two years

MOSCOW, March 10. /TASS/. The former prime minister of Ukraine, Mykola Azarov, has offered Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who has just survived no-confidence vote, to switch places so that he could correct all mistakes made by Yatesenyuk during his two years of premiership.

"I suggest we make a bet. We switch places, you go wherever you will. I take your office to restore in two years all you have destroyed, raising salaries and pensions to the extent you lowered them, reducing tariffs to the same extent that you increased them, and restoring in the country stability you failed to ensure," Azarov wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday.

"I guarantee peace you have stripped Ukraine of," he went on. He also came out with an offer to publicly assess the results in two years. "I am sure that I won’t be the only winner, but the whole Ukrainian people will win," the former prime minister wrote.

On February 16 the Ukrainian parliament slammed government activity as unsatisfactory, but was short of votes to send it into resignation. A no-confidence vote was supported by 194 lawmakers whereas at least 226 votes are needed to pass a resolution.

These events triggered a political crisis in which the Batkivshchina (Fatherland) faction and several lawmakers from the pro-presidential Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction withdrew from the coalition. The Samopomich (Self-assistance) followed the lead on the next day leaving the coalition with only 215 votes which are not enough to take majority-vote decisions.