| Parliamentary speaker mulls own political project |
 |
 |
 |
| Monday, 22 September 2008 11:39 |
|
Parliamentary speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk has said he is mulling a political project of his own. In an interview with the Inter TV channel on September 21, he said this would not be a project of "Yatseniuk only" but of "an idea of a strong democratic state". He denied rumours, which have recently circulated in the media, that he has been discussing this project with businessman and Party of Regions MP Rinat Akhmetov. "If I start building a political project on one or another businessman, a very respected one I'd say, or one or another clan, or on a single personality, this will be a closed joint stock company," he said, adding that in such a case this will not be anything new but a reformatting of the old political scene. However, Yatseniuk refused to specify who would join him in this project by saying "you will certainly hear about them during the presentation of a project". When asked if the secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, Rayisa Bohatyryova, is among them, Yatseniuk said that she is not because she deserves a separate project. Speaking about possible solutions to the current parliamentary crisis, he said: "I can hardly believe in a democratic coalition (between the propresidential Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defence bloc and the progovernment Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc) in a new-old format. This would be too good. As chairman of the Supreme Council, I would hail this. Secondly, I do not rule the formation of another coalition." However, he added that if the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the opposition Party of Regions do form a coalition, it would be difficult for them to explain their ideological foundations to voters. The third option, according to him, would be an early parliamentary election. "The worst thing is that people are tired of it but it is another chance for democracy," he said. Yatseniuk resigned as speaker last week but will remain in his post until a new speaker is elected in Parliament. |
