Domestic experts are confident that Arseniy Petrovich's continued career as prime minister will only worsen Ukraine's crisis and degrade the country.
Today, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk will deliver a report on his work over the past year to the Verkhovna Rada. A preliminary draft of this document was published two weeks earlier, and experts say it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. However, Yatsenyuk's dismal personal approval rating is the most objective assessment of his performance. Based on this, domestic political analysts unanimously assert that if the prime minister doesn't resign today, Ukraine faces at least several more months of profound political crisis.
"If Arseniy Yatsenyuk remains prime minister, the impoverishment of the people and the degradation of the state apparatus, the army, diplomacy, and other important state institutions will continue," predicts Serhiy Gaidai, director of the social engineering agency Gaidai.Com and political strategist. At the same time, according to the expert, the problem now lies not only with Yatsenyuk, but with the entire ruling elite. "If we simply replace the current prime minister with, for example, Natalia Yaresko, nothing will change. We need to change both the elite and the social contract between the people and the government," Serhiy Gaidai believes.
"Real change must occur in all important areas, including decentralization and constitutional reform, which should be carried out without regard for the wishes of other states. But this can only be achieved by people who are interested in the development of the 'Ukraine' project, not in how much money they can make from it or how best to protect existing assets," the political scientist concluded.
In turn, Viktor Nebozhenko, director of the Ukrainian Barometer sociological service, noted that the main factor influencing the prime minister's decision is currently the IMF's position. The organization's leadership fully supports the current head of government. "We depend on the IMF; it gives us money, yet it supports Yatsenyuk. This is a serious problem. Another problem is that parliament cannot decide on specific demands for Yatsenyuk's team or on the name of his potential successor," Nebozhenko said.
Therefore, the political scientist notes, the search for a way out of the crisis will drag on indefinitely, and he estimates that around May, the no-confidence motion against Arseniy Yatsenyuk's government will be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada again for consideration. "The president should play a key role in this process, but he still hasn't made up his mind: he's either preparing to remove Arseniy Yatsenyuk or finding common ground with him," the political scientist concludes. In any case, Nebozhenko is confident, the current prime minister will not receive any long-term guarantees.
Nebozhenko's colleague and director of the Institute of Global Strategies, Vadim Karasev, shares this opinion. "If the prime minister's resignation doesn't happen tomorrow, it will definitely happen in four to five months. Until then, we can expect relative stability in domestic politics. Or rather, semi-stability, since in that case, there will definitely be no elections in the next six months," Karasev believes.
The expert also clarified that there should be no illusions about the effectiveness of the current parliamentary coalition if Prime Minister Yatsenyuk continues to serve. "There won't be a strong coalition in the Rada, as there won't be a confident majority, which, incidentally, we're already seeing. And without a sufficient number of votes, there won't be a normal legislative process," Karasev predicts. Consequently, the expert continues, all important laws, whether presidential or government initiatives, will be adopted with great difficulty and delays.
"Furthermore, various political scandals, leaks of compromising information, and mutual provocations between members of a coalition that has de facto ceased to exist for a long time will become more frequent," Vadim Karasev concluded.
Be that as it may, even this semi-stability is currently quite satisfactory for our Western partners – not only the IMF, but also the US, says political consultant and co-founder of K&K Group, Oleksandr Kopyl. According to the expert, the West is doing everything possible to preserve the political situation in Ukraine and prevent the collapse of the ruling coalition. "Arseniy Yatsenyuk's fate now depends on which of two mutually exclusive political trends prevails in Ukraine. The first is pressure from our Western partners, who are interested in preserving the current coalition. The second is the domestic logic of the political process, where the main players (the president, Batkivshchyna, Samopomich, Mikheil Saakashvili, and the Opposition Bloc) are not interested in preserving Yatsenyuk's government. Therefore, the resignation of the Cabinet of Ministers and early elections are only a matter of time," Kopyl believes.
According to the analyst, domestic political processes in Ukraine will sooner or later outweigh the West's position, and, in his opinion, this could happen after Ukraine receives the next tranche of the IMF or after the US presidential elections.
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