KIEV, January 21. /ITAR-TASS/. The Ukrainian political crisis is largely determined by the country’s non-working parliament, its speaker Vladimir Rybak believes. “The escalation of the crisis has acquired such a scale largely due to the disorganisation and halt of the parliamentary process,” Rybak noted in an article published by the Golos Ukrainy (Voice of Ukraine) newspaper on Tuesday.
“All the social processes that were developing in the country since last year’s September to mid-January, in that way or another have affected the work of the third session of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament). It may be said that the parliament was ‘shaking’ together with the country. At the same time, the Rada as one of the most important institutions of the country and the deputy corps that represents all the population groups, failed to perform their functions in order to minimise social upheavals in the country,” Rybak believes. “This is an obvious drawback in the work of the third session of the seventh parliament. As the parliament head and a politician with a long work experience I admit it frankly and openly,” the speaker said.
In his view, the main problem of the political crisis of the late 2013 - early 2014 - is first of all the fact that “a considerable part of the parliamentarians, especially those who model their own high political orbits, are more and more distancing themselves from the electorate, from the realities of the life of the people and the country.”
Rybak also noted that many parliamentary politicians “from among the inveterate ‘pro-Europeans’ for months had been overstating public expectations regarding Ukraine’s future association with the European Union. “Only thanks to the political will and realism of the Ukrainian president, the country has avoided the imminent economic collapse and further political earthquakes,” believes the parliament head.
He noted that the parliamentary opposition “in parallel with street campaigning, has adopted the policy of torpedoing the Verkhovna Rada work, also categorically refusing from dialogue.” “I believe that the escalation of the current crisis has acquired such a scale largely due to the disorganisation and halt of the parliamentary process. The Verkhovna Rada has factually ceased to be the centre of political debate in the country,” Rybak stressed.
He believes that one of the main reasons for the parliamentary crisis is also “the intolerable presidential itch of the political chiefs of the opposition, which against the background of the November and December developments did not hide their lust for power.” “Hence the calls for immediate change of the Constitution, early presidential election, for resignation of all top executives of the legitimately elected or appointed authority of the country and other demands, which even in the West, in particular, in the European Union, have been recognised as unjustified and unreasonably overstated,” the Ukrainian parliament speaker believes.