Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced his resignation last week. The official reason for his premature resignation is the split of the ruling coalition in the parliament. After two parties said they would pull out, Yatsenyuk stated the Parliament could no longer do its work and introduce amendments to Ukraine’s draft budget in particular. The Ukrainian policy maker considers the temporal stepping down as the only way out in the political gridlock. “In case the governing coalition in the parliament has collapsed and no coalition has been formed, then both the government and prime minister are obligated to leave. Hence, I declare my resignation because of the coalition split and negligence of government’s proposals,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk commented on his own decision. The ruling coalition broke down after the Udar party had withdrawn from voting on sequestering Ukraine’s public budget. Deputy Pavel Rosenko said, “The Udar party came to a decision to refrain from voting for the anti-social draft budget submitted by the government.” Importantly, Yatsenyuk’s government is fully aware that it is adopting unpopular measures to satisfy conditions for rescue loans from the International Monetary Fund. Moreover, the amendments had to be made after the large-scale counter-terrorism mission in South-East Ukraine had been fulfilled. Combat operations shattered the regional infrastructure and economy. Ukraine’s public budget was lacking funds to protect the territorial integrity and carry out the anti-terrorism operation. Besides, these efforts automatically make it impossible to fulfill other commitments. For example, the resolution to impose the income tax on deposits caused deterioration of the investment environment in the country. Such a radical decision is likely to jeopardize the banking system as it will face massive withdrawal of the scant available funds.
