Ukraine’s president calls for prime minister to resign

Police officers stand guard before an annual report of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk at parliament in Kiev on Feb. 16. (Roman Pilipey/European Pressphoto Agency)

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, center, reacts after surviving a vote of no confidence Tuesday. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)

By Andrew Roth-February 16

KIEV, Ukraine — Heralding a political showdown between the country’s two leading politicians, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Tuesday called for Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to resign and for a cabinet shake-up to address outrage over allegations of corruption and political cronyism.

Amid a wave of resignations from reform-minded political appointees, Poroshenko said in a statement Tuesday that Yatsenyuk’s cabinet has lost the public trust. Poroshenko also said he has asked for the resignation of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who has repeatedly been accused in Ukraine's press of corruption.

“Obviously society and the government are not satisfied with the pace of change,” Poroshenko said in a blistering statement. “Therapy is already not enough to restore confidence. Surgery is needed.”

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Poroshenko’s announcement marked the peak of a political crisis that has been building in Ukraine since the country’s pro-Western revolution in 2014. While attention was long diverted to questions of separatism and Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine, the stalemate in that conflict has returned attention to the glacial pace of reforms in the capital.

The collapse of the government would mark the most serious political crisis for Ukraine since massive street protests ousted Russian-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. As political infighting reaches fever pitch, there is only one popular consensus: The goals of the revolution have not been met.

If Yatsenyuk is ousted, his supporters may leave the ruling coalition, leading to fresh talks to maintain the government or snap parliamentary elections. Those elections could prove too much of a shock for the country, Poroshenko said Tuesday. He called for Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front party to remain part of the ruling coalition and return trust to the government “within the parliament walls.”

Both Yatsenyuk’s and Poroshenko’s favorability ratings have plunged to single digits in recent months, mainly because of Ukraine’s flagging economy. But it was largely pressure from within Poroshenko’s own party that forced his hand Tuesday, as lawmakers gathered signatures to push a vote of no confidence against Yatsenyuk.

Yatsenyuk, who took the lectern in the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, on Tuesday to defend the government’s record, did not immediately respond to Poroshenko’s letter.

Several key reformers in the government have resigned this month with scandalous denunciations about the state of reform in Ukraine. On Monday, Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaly Kasko left office, writing that “the current leadership of the prosecutor’s office has once and for all turned it into a body where corruption dominates, and corrupt schemes are covered up.”

“It’s not justice and law that are in charge here, but arbitrary rule and lawlessness,” he wrote.

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Ukraine’s government also has been under increasing pressure from its backers in the United States and Europe, who view ongoing corruption problems with growing dismay.

The problems in the Ukrainian government are so severe that some Western diplomats have begun to worry that they will weaken the West’s sanctions regime against Russia. European Union measures will expire at the end of July, unless the 28 E.U. nations vote unanimously to extend them.

“The Ukrainians have not helped themselves,” said one Western diplomat involved in the sanctions regime, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions candidly. The E.U. sanctions against Russia are linked in part to whether the Kremlin helps Kiev regain control of rebel-held parts of the Russia-Ukraine border. But whether Russia lives up to its end of the bargain or not, fractious European nations may be losing their appetite to make financial sacrifices on Ukraine’s behalf, the diplomat said.

European nations, besieged by a flood of refugees from the conflict in Syria, may be looking for more cooperation from the Kremlin, the diplomat said, with Russia’s airstrikes now playing a major role in the grinding battle there. E.U. leaders also may be less willing to line up behind German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who until now has been the main enforcer of sanctions discipline but is under attack for throwing open Germany’s doors to refugees.

Michael Birnbaum in Moscow contributed to this report.