Ukraine Coalition Govt Collapses, Setting Stage for New Elections

Western Bloc Pushing to Ban Communists Before Vote

Fresh off the second brawl in the nation’s parliament so far this week, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced his resignation and the intentions of the outgoing coalition to disband and push snap elections later this year.

The current coalition is built around the assorted Western and ultranationalist blocs, and collapsed when far-right Svoboda and the Democratic Alliance for Reform both withdrew, primarily with the goal of forcing a new election.

The idea is that the new elections would eliminate a number of opposition MPs, with the Party of Regions likely to lose a lot of its representation if the eastern portion of the nation, still in the midst of a war for secession, can’t vote. This is the Party of Regions’ primary power bloc.

Beyond them, the outgoing ruling bloc is hoping to knock the Communist Party out of parliament entirely, and is pushing for a full-scale ban on the party on allegations of their “financing” the secessionist rebels. Today’s brawl saw ultranationalists attacking the Communist MPs.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.