Batkivschina Party (Yulia Tymoshenko) Threatens To Quit Coalition

Batkivshchyna, the faction of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, has threatened to withdraw from the ruling coalition in the Ukrainian parliament, deputy Volodymyr Ivchenko said on Friday.

Ukraine’s Radical Party also announced last week it quit the ruling coalition after a vote on constitutional changes, believed to be aimed at granting more autonomy to Donbas, led to deadly clashes outside the parliament.

“We also want to influence the agenda,” Ivchenko said, adding that “either we form the agenda and reach an agreement together, unite the common stance and vote or we will be the next ones to leave the coalition.”

The party’s leader Tymoshenko earlier said the faction was not planning to quit the coalition.

The coalition of factions — the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, the People’s Front of PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Samopomich (Self-Help), Batkivshchyna and the Radical Party — was created in late November 2014.

The Radical Party led by Oleh Lyashko had 21 votes in the coalition’s total 295. The agreement on the coalition, known as the European Ukraine, envisages no automatic split. If the number of deputies is under 226, the coalition will cease to exist.