"Shirka" Returns. How the Coalition Entices Former 'Regionals'

"Shirka" Returns. How the Coalition Entices Former 'Regionals'.

Is the authorities ready to give former Regionals four ministerial posts?

Persistent problems securing support for important bills are forcing the coalition to seek different forms of cooperation with parliamentary factions and groups that are not part of the majority. For the sake of reliable votes on projects important to the Office of the President and the government, parliamentary groups formed from ex-Regionals are being offered not just occasional handouts for their constituencies, but entire ministries. For example, the authorities are reportedly ready to put up for "auction" the ministries of agrarian policy, infrastructure, youth and sports, and ecology. Glavcom looked into the behind-the-scenes games that are leading to a comeback of the "former".

Buy-in

No matter how much Speaker Andriy Parubiy says that the coalition has enough deputies to exist, in practice discipline in the People's Front and especially in the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko is faltering. For any decision, the coalition has to look for support "elsewhere." The Opposition Bloc has become a regular supplier of votes for the authorities' "decisive reforms," despite post-Maidan parties publicly distancing themselves from cooperating with it. At one time, the Opposition Bloc, like all former Regionals who voted for the "dictatorship laws," was even denied leadership positions on committees. But over three years the situation has changed so that the Office of the President now has support from those with whom it was not long ago on opposite sides of the barricades.

Currently the authorities are conducting active negotiations with groups formed from former Regionals: Vidrodzhennia and Volia Narodu. For clear image reasons these formations are not yet being offered formal coalition membership. At the same time, the coalition is counting on a more systematic "backup" of votes. So far this synchronization happens infrequently but effectively. According to the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, in September deputies from Vidrodzhennia and Volia Narodu participated in only 7% of votes, the worst indicator in parliament. Admittedly, last month can't be considered representative because the Rada was slogging through thousands of amendments to judicial reform, most of which were simply voted down. But in 2016 the deputies' groups were also among the leaders in absenteeism, and during the sixth session they missed 80% of votes. Still, when Vidrodzhennia decides to vote, it does so with determination—one member of that group, Anton Yatsenko, is one of the parliamentary leaders in button-pressing, managing to vote both for himself and for several physically absent colleagues. Now, to encourage the groups to help the coalition more actively, the latter is ready to give them certain personnel bonuses.

Anton Yatsenko (Vidrodzhennia) prepares to vote for less disciplined colleagues.

Vidrodzhennia and Volia Narodu consist of single-member-district deputies, which on one hand makes their integration into the pro-government majority easier, and on the other creates obstacles. Easier—because single-member-district deputies are generally easier to buy. The groups do not hide and see nothing wrong with often casting votes in exchange for budgetary subventions for their districts. What complicates matters is that single-member-district deputies who won elections in hard-fought races and spent lots of resources on them are stubborn and do not submit to discipline as readily as list MPs. Moreover, each has personal interests (depending even on the region), and it's hard to expect that this motley company can be forced to vote unanimously on the group leader's cue. The leader effectively acts as a communicator with the Office of the President, conveying his deputies' "wishes" to the Presidential Administration.

The Legacy of Yeremeyev

Volia Narodu is led by former MP from the Party of Regions and ex-first deputy head of the Kyiv Regional State Administration Yaroslav Moskalenko.

Yaroslav Moskalenko and his group Volia Narodu once helped the "non-degree-holding" Yuriy Lutsenko become prosecutor general with their votes.

In 2015 he took the place of the late Ihor Yeremeyev, who was the group's brain. Of course, Moskalenko is nowhere near Yeremeyev in influence, so the group regularly loses deputies for various reasons. And so that it doesn't cease to exist for lack of the minimally required number of members, the Office of the President has to rescue it, persuading unaffiliated MPs to join. Thus, in September the group's ranks were bolstered by the notorious developer Maksym Mykytas, who ran in a by-election in a Chernihiv constituency with tacit support from the authorities, and by former Verkhovna Rada deputy from the Party of Regions and Kyiv Council member from the Chernovetsky Bloc, Oleksandr Suprunenko.

It's no secret that the Office of the President planned to rename Volia Narodu as Nash Krai—a satellite party of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko that presents itself as a project of strong managers and posts decent local election results. But so far Volia's deputies, among whom are representatives of Nash Krai—Oleksandr Feldman and Serhiy Shakhov—have resisted, not wishing to fully plunge into political games. They find it more comfortable to bargain for each separate vote. Shakhov told Glavcom that he is persuading the group about Nash Krai's prospects, but so far unsuccessfully. Volia Narodu, by the way, is registered with the Ministry of Justice as a party, and there is even a small like-named group in the Sumy regional council (thanks to Andriy Derkach, who already left the parliamentary group accusing it of cooperating with the authorities).

"Our late leader Ihor Yeremeyev said we are ready to join the coalition, cooperate with the authorities and take responsibility, but only publicly," says Volia Narodu deputy Serhiy Labaziuk. "We have repeatedly been offered one ministry or another or to place one of our leaders. We are ready for that, but so that everyone sees that Volia Narodu is putting its own representative and will be responsible for the result."

According to Labaziuk, group leader Moskalenko is constantly in dialogue with the president, the prime minister and the speaker and is discussing such possibilities: "They want to win our loyalty for forces that today lack votes."

Kolomoyskyi's Ears

Vidrodzhennia is more structured as a party and has factions in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regional councils; in the Kharkiv city council this force controls the majority. However, Vidrodzhennia's success in Kharkiv is solely linked to the person of Mayor Hennadiy Kernes. Nationally the party's ratings are negligible. In parliament, the namesake group feels, on the one hand, better than Volia Narodu—there are as many as 26 deputies compared with 19 minimally required in Volia. But Vidrodzhennia has another flaw—the group is too motley and conflict-ridden. Some deputies are tied to the wealthiest MP Vitaliy Khomutynnik, some to oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, who cannot be called a supporter of the president, and some roam on their own. Initially the group had three co-chairs—Khomutynnik, Viktor Bondar and Valeriy Pysarenko. Later attempts by some deputies to make Bondar the sole leader led to an unexpected result—Khomutynnik became the sole leader.

One of Vidrodzhennia's leaders, Vitaliy Khomutynnik, constantly "synchronizes watches" with influential BPP deputy Oleksandr Granovsky.

But at the start of the autumn session he resigned as group head because of a General Prosecutor's Office investigation into possible tax evasion. Bondar is currently the sole head of Vidrodzhennia. In a comment to Glavcom he denies any negotiations with the authorities about joining the coalition—formal or informal.

Vitaliy Khomutynnik (left) and Viktor Bondar (center) long shared leadership in Vidrodzhennia.

"We haven't had such conversations and no one offers us that," the leader of Vidrodzhennia rebuffs. "We don't support many issues on principle, so we are not very convenient for the coalition. We are not considering that option. If you make a coalition with them, you have to sign on and vote in unison on everything. And we don't want to fool each other as they are doing now." Bondar reports that all conflicts in the group are exhausted, it is "more monolithic than ever," and the party is preparing for parliamentary elections.

Dividing the Ministries

According to Glavcom's information, negotiations about formal or informal integration with the coalition have been ongoing since summer. Each group even presented personnel conditions to the coalition: the general concept was that both Vidrodzhennia and Volia Narodu demanded two ministries each in exchange for joining the majority. And reportedly the coalition's grey cardinals even agreed to such a price. Interestingly, the proposed package of ministries "to be given" consisted mostly of portfolios from the People's Front quota.

Sources in Volia Narodu recall that in exchange for regular vote backup they were offered the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, which was left without a head after the resignation of Taras Kutovyi (a BPP quota), and the Ministry of Ecology, which currently has a full minister, Ostap Semerak (a People's Front quota). However, the People's Front categorically denies the possibility of Semerak's resignation, considering him a fairly effective minister. Also among the "bargaining chips" were the Ministry of Youth and Sports, headed by Arseniy Yatsenyuk's friend and former Tymoshenko political technologist Ihor Zhdanov, and the post of vice prime minister for humanitarian affairs (Vyacheslav Kyrylenko from the People's Front). But such two "humanitarian" gifts from the ruling hand did not particularly interest the pragmatic single-member-district deputies. It is also known that talks took place about handing the resource-rich Ministry of Infrastructure to the groups, since current minister Volodymyr Omelyan lost the People's Front's support and had also made powerful enemies in the form of the Dubnevych brothers from BPP.

But even without ministries there are incentives for loyal behavior for the groups. For example, Moskalenko from Volia Narodu was already given Kyiv region to manage—its current head is his former aide Oleksandr Horgan.

Volia Narodu leader Yaroslav Moskalenko in every way helps govern Kyiv region alongside Governor Oleksandr Horgan.

And Mykytas, who recently joined Volia Narodu, received a substantial bonus—the company SK Ukrbudmontazh, owned by his wife, won a tender to build a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel for three Ukrainian nuclear power plants. The contract is worth nearly one billion hryvnias.

The coalition, it seems, is not yet ready for an official "shirka" with former Regionals for image reasons, but is forced to win their favor through the "back door."

Pavlo Vuyets, Glavcom