A mono-majority cannot assemble a Rada, and here’s why...
The protracted story with the mobilization bill once again demonstrated the depth of the Ukrainian parliamentary crisis. Last week, the Verkhovna Rada did not meet for its scheduled meetings. She did not plan to do so this week either, although there is a possibility of holding a one-day meeting. The last time parliament met was on February 23, when deputies were able to pass a controversial law on lobbying, and no further voting took place. And in general, since the beginning of the year, the Rada has been in session for less than ten days, which demonstrates a striking contrast with the romantic “turbo mode” that was activated at the beginning of the term of this parliament.
The opposition deliberately raises the issue of the incapacity of the highest legislative body and draws attention to the gradual disintegration of the mono-majority into shreds. At the same time, the opposition is not demanding elections; moreover, all parliamentary forces have signed a document in which they guarantee that they are not going to discuss the topic of holding them until the end of martial law. But the conceptual agreement does not protect against smaller and very significant “showdowns”: for example, the leadership of the parliament, on frankly far-fetched pretexts, is delaying the issuance of permits for opposition members to travel abroad, and in response they are blackmailing by blocking the bills by considering all their amendments one by one.
At the same time, the opposition complains that people’s deputies from parliamentary groups loyal to Bankova (in particular, ex-OPZZH) do not have any problems with free movement and, as a bonus for the necessary votes, receive trips outside of Ukraine, and not only on business trips. And they take advantage of it too much. All these factors led to the blocking of the work of parliament.
“Cunning plans” and their exposers
Last week, the agenda was overloaded with dozens of important bills, including those directly related to military needs. And the ministers who were present at the meeting of the conciliation council on March 4 personally asked not to delay their adoption. However, the leadership of the parliament and the mono-majority, after the conciliation council, unexpectedly decided that the people’s deputies... would go to the front line. Moreover, the impression was that the explanation for such a step was invented literally “on the fly.”
The head of the mono-majority, David Arakhamia, noted that, by analogy with work in the districts, deputies will work more with the military - on the front line, in training centers and permanent deployment points.
“Now in this direction there is an urgent and important task for our deputies, which directly affects the assistance of our partners. When it is completed, they will return to work in the session hall,” he explained, without specifying why all these matters should interfere with each other. The “important task” for the deputies, according to Arakhamia, was related to the need for a comprehensive report to the American Senate, and such sudden departure of parliamentarians outside the capital was explained by security issues.
Let us remind you that the Senate, to which the “servants” are preparing a report, is one of the two chambers of the US Congress and has already decided to allocate assistance to Ukraine, however, the issue is stuck in the second chamber – the House of Representatives.
At the same time, the leader of the mono-majority almost blamed the opposition for disrupting the session week: “Some of them (oppositionists) are going to party congresses in Romania. Some went on business trips that included working in the European Parliament. Others wanted to engage in right-wing terrorism, while others wanted to engage in speeches and broadcasts on TikTok. This is clearly not what our military and our partners expect. And this is definitely not what brings victory closer.”
Poroshenko’s “European Solidarity,” in turn, immediately unraveled the “cunning plans” of the authorities. Its people's deputies took advantage of the situation to remind that the mono-majority has long disappeared and does not give more than 170 votes, and not a single fundamental decision would have passed in parliament without the support of the “EU,” which is still ready to “lend a helping hand.” In exchange for this, the “Poroshenkoites” want nothing at all - an immediate reformatting of the majority and the creation of a government of national unity.
Different routes to the front
Despite such persistent calls for joint work, the “servants” were determined to prepare a report for the Americans on their own. Thus, in the intra-party chat of the mono-majority, a cry was raised about a trip to the military positions. Three groups of 10 deputies were formed, each of which had to inspect one of three areas - the state of the front lines, fortifications and the situation in educational complexes. Deputy Chairman of the Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, Yuri Mysyagin, was responsible for organizing the groups. The oppositionists claimed that they tried to contact Mysyagin to enroll in these groups, but he ignored their wishes.
The “Commander in Chief” asked many “servants of the people” whether they were involved in party assignments, but they only shrugged their shoulders in response and claimed that they were doing their usual work.
“This story about the report to the Americans may actually be a figment of David’s imagination. It’s not clear why someone in the Senate suddenly needed our necessary “training” and fortifications,” the interlocutor from the faction was perplexed. Off the record, his comrades agreed that the real reason for this unity of deputies with the military was the lack of votes in parliament. The already mentioned voyage of government partners from other parliamentary groups abroad had an impact. And without a sufficient number of bayonets, gathering for meetings is not only pointless, but also generally dangerous.
However, some representatives of the mono-majority actually visited the front line. Thus, Yegor Chernev from the Defense Committee, during a trip with colleagues to positions near Avdievka, concluded that without urgent assistance from the United States, it would be extremely difficult to maintain these positions. The People's Deputy promised to arm Ukraine's friends in Congress with the information received, who are trying to get the ball rolling on the provision of American assistance.
“Servant” Alexander Kachura, together with his faction colleague Alexander Marikovsky, checked fortifications in his native Sumy region.
“I believe that such work should continue constantly,” he tells the “Commander in Chief,” “Deputies should regularly travel both to the front line and to the line of contact with the aggressor state in order to understand how they are strengthening today. Based on the results of the trip, a report was compiled; in particular, we collected from military personnel a significant number of issues that need to be resolved at the regulatory level. We passed all this on to management.”
People's deputies from “European Solidarity”, whose mono-majority “did not pick up the phone,” became concerned about the state of the fortifications on their own. The faction sent a landing force to the border areas led by its co-chairs Irina Gerashchenko and Artur Gerasimov.
Based on the results of the trip, Gerashchenko criticized the general situation with protective structures. She noted the lack of concrete floors and noted that the confiscation of personal income taxes from local communities leads to problems with providing for the military. To improve defense processes, the “EU” demands the creation of a temporary special commission in the Verkhovna Rada to oversee fortification work.
Other parliamentary factions were not noticed in mass excursions, but deputies from the small “Voice” and “Batkivshchyna” claim that they are already dealing with military issues, although they do not make such performances out of it.
“We are all constantly engaged in war, and last week it was the usual cheap show of “servants of the people” to avoid the shame of the failure of the vote,” Andrei Osadchuk, people’s deputy from “Golos”, was categorical in a conversation with “Glavkom”. His faction colleague Yaroslav Zheleznyak said that, despite the authorities’ statements about the trip of deputies from the mono-majority to the front, most of them remained in Kiev, however, due to the “excuse” invented by the leadership, consideration of European integration bills in particular was disrupted.
Mobilization on the march
The relevant committee on national security, defense and intelligence, despite all previous leaks regarding the consideration of amendments, only this week officially began consideration of the long-suffering bill on mobilization. And before it votes on the basis, the parliamentary “curators” need, in turn, to mobilize all reserves. Although the “servants of the people” gave 178 votes for bill No. 10449 in the first reading, quite good for its current state, it would not have been adopted as a basis if not for the support of people’s deputies from the former OPZZH faction.
Here’s a paradox: representatives of the once pro-Kremlin force suddenly became concerned about recruiting the Ukrainian army, while patriotic factions attacked the bill with devastating criticism. Whether those 243 votes will be preserved in conditions when more than 4 thousand amendments have been submitted for the second reading, most of them from the “servants of the people” themselves, is not such a clear-cut question. Especially when hidden among thousands of edits are such controversial ones as the possibility of booking men by income level, which, to put it mildly, will be a debatable norm. During the noisy consideration of this bill, the sudden cancellation of the Rada meetings and the strange reason why the deputies were called “to the fields” may well be forgotten.
Sources in parliament suggest that the same report for the Senate, which the leadership of the “servants” used to hide behind, will be sent to Washington, most likely, not on behalf of the Verkhovna Rada, but from its direct initiators – the mono-majority faction. If the aid package for Ukraine is pushed through Congress, people’s deputies will always be able to say that they had a hand in it.
