According to the pro-government majority, 244 MPs were registered as present at the alternative session. The opposition and some sources within the Party of Regions claim, however, that the number of those present is 168. Meanwhile, the opposition is holding its session at the parliament building. The move urged the opposition to call people for an unscheduled rally as part of the Rise Ukraine! campaign on Saturday, April 6, in Kyiv. “Under the mutual decision of our two factions, we ask people to go out on the streets on Saturday,” Svoboda’s Oleh Tyahnybok announced at the meeting of the leaders of opposition factions.
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Prior to this decision, pro-government majority MPs insisted that the procedure allows them to relocate the session with 226 votes. Meanwhile, Batkivshchyna representatives say that any parliamentary decisions passed outside the parliament building are illegitimate and signal a coup in the country. “We warn the Party of Regions to refrain from actions that lead to a split not only in the Verkhovna Rada, but the entire society. We would like to remind the VR Speaker of amendments to parliamentary procedure that ban such actions, dating back to 2000, when Viktor Medvedchuk held an alternative session at the Ukrainian House. If Yanukovych accepts this, it will signal that the Party of Regions launches a coup and a junta takes over,” Batkivshchyna’s Yuriy Odarchenko commented.
