The Servants of the People are not stable: another MP makes a demarche
19 July 2024 16:28
ЕКСКЛЮЗИВ
From today, the Servant of the People party has lost a number of MPs: MP Yulia Yatsyk has left the parliamentary faction. The coalition now officially has 233 MPs. Yulia Yatsyk told [Komersant] in an exclusive commentary that the main reason for leaving the faction was different views on the work of an MP. She says that her decision has been ripe for a long time.
“This decision has been long overdue for me, my vision did not coincide with the work of the Servant of the People faction back when I did not support the law on the land market and voted against it. They even collected signatures or voted to expel me from the faction. But there were not enough votes,”
– she said.
Yulia Yatsyk noted that after the start of the full-scale invasion, she did not vote for those bills that were “important for the President’s Office”.
“After the start of the full-scale invasion, I actively spoke out and criticised the Presidential Office for misusing humanitarian aid, in particular, Kirill Tymoshenko. And of course, I do not vote on many important bills for the OP and the faction: mobilisation, increased taxation, excise tax, etc.”
– she said.
The MP noted that this is her third application to leave the faction. The first two were not considered.
“I have been applying for exclusion from the faction since 2022. I have finally passed all the approval procedures. From now on, I will be an unaffiliated MP,”
– yulia Yatsyk said.
Recently, MP Mariana Bezuhla left the Servant of the People faction. She, like Yulia Yatsyk, does not lose her mandate when she leaves the faction, as she was elected to the Verkhovna Rada in a majority constituency.
Who is Yulia Yatsyk?
In 2019, MP Yulia Yatsyk was elected to the Verkhovna Rada in the constituency No. 79 of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. She is a member of the parliamentary committee on law enforcement and deputy head of the provisional investigatory commission to investigate possible violations of Ukrainian legislation in the Ministry of Defence, the Armed Forces and other military formations established in accordance with the law, special purpose law enforcement agencies, positions in which are staffed by military and law enforcement personnel.
Which MPs were expelled from the Servant of the People party
“The Servant of the People party won a record 254 MPs – 124 from the list and 130 from the majority – in the early elections.
Over the nearly five years of the Verkhovna Rada of the IX convocation, the Servant of the People party has significantly changed its composition of MPs. About thirty MPs who were initially members of the faction left President Zelenskyy’s parliamentary team. Some of the MPs parted ways with the party amicably and received other positions, while others left the faction with scandals.
MPs from the Servant of the People party, Dmytro Razumkovand Ruslan Stefanchuk, and after the reshuffle, Oleksandr Kornienko, joined the parliamentary leadership, so they formally left the faction and are now unaffiliated.
After being recalled from office, Dmytro Razumkov did not return to his faction, but remained in the Rada as a non-factional member.
The first to be expelled from the Servant of the People faction in November 2019 were MPs Anna Skorokhod and Anton Polyakov. They left the faction due to internal conflicts and various scandals.
Following the publication of information about his conviction for gang rape in November 2019, MP Roman Ivanisov was expelled from the party faction.
On 1 September 2020, the party faction expelled MP Geo Leros, who had previously called the president “an empty place in history”, criticised the “telephone law” of the head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, and accused Zelenskyy of nepotism, referring, in particular, to the appointment of Ivan Bakanov as head of the SBU.
In September 2020, following a high-profile corruption scandal, Kyiv majoritarian Oleksandr Yurchenko, whom the NABU suspects of bribery, was expelled from the Servant of the People party.
In March 2021, the Servants expelled scandalous majoritarian Oleksandr Dubinsky because he was included in the US sanctions list. And in May 2021, another controversial majoritarian from Zaporizhzhia, Yevhen Shevchenko, was expelled from the Servant of the People faction after he supported the actions of the Lukashenko regime.
“The Servants also expelled MP Lyudmyla Buymister and Odesa majoritarian Artem Dmytruk.
In 2023, the Rada voted to terminate the parliamentary powers of Servant of the People MP Yuriy Aristov, who had previously been spotted at a resort in the Maldives.
In July 2023, Ukrainian MP Lyudmyla Marchenko was expelled from the Servant of the People party and her membership in the Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada was suspended after she was suspected of influence peddling. According to the investigation, she promised to help a person liable for military service to go abroad for money.
In August 2023, MPs Anatolii Hunko and Bohdan Torokhtiia were expelled from the faction. These MPs were expelled because of high-profile scandals. Anatoliy Hunko and two of his accomplices were detained for receiving an undue benefit of $85,000, while Torokhtiy continued to receive rental compensation from the budget while his family was buying luxury property in Europe.
Mykola Tyshchenko, a member of the Servant of the People party, was expelled from the party and deprived of his position as deputy head of the faction because he travelled to Thailand during the war.
In July 2023, the Verkhovna Rada received a statement from the Servant of the People, Andriy Kholodov, who has been in Cyprus since January 2023, resigning his seat.
In addition, the Rada was shaken by high-profile resignations from the faction of majoritarian “servants”.
Thus, at a Rada meeting, MP Roman Sokha from Zaporizhzhia stated that he “does not want and cannot be involved with people who do not comply with the principles they declared when running for office”.
Ihor Kryvosheiev from Zakarpattia, who also wrote a letter of resignation, cited the party’s personnel policy as one of the reasons.
Some other MPs were expelled from the faction not because of scandals, but because, according to David Arakhamia, head of the Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada, “they were not ready to take political responsibility for fulfilling their election promises”.
This process of reshuffling the Servant of the People faction is still ongoing.
In February of this year, MP Viacheslav Medianyk wrote a letter of resignation for health reasons.
on 17 July, MP Mariana Bezuhla resigned from the Servant of the People faction at her own request, and on 19 July, MP Yulia Yatsyk wrote a letter of resignation from the parliamentary faction.
The coalition now officially has 233 MPs. It should be noted that the voting in the Rada shows that there is no monolithic unity in the mono-majority, and the presidential laws do not have sufficient support from the “servants”.
