What to expect in the new parliamentary season

The annual speech of the President outlines accomplishments and failures. Over the course of modern Ukrainian history, the addresses have painted the image of the country’s every leader and his era in politics

President Poroshenko's state of the nation address to the Rada

Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada on the main contradictions and temptations of Ukrainian politics, the major ideological camps in the legislature, the war, lobbying, and geopolitics

In 2017, Ukraine will be a major test of conscience that will force democratic countries to an uneasy choice among values

Verkhovna Rada Vice-Speaker on re-balancing power in Ukraine, the effect of the Minsk process, and occupied territories

Who is vying for leadership in the Poroshenko Bloc and Yatseniuk's People’s Front

How generations shift in the electoral field of the former Party of Regions clans

What the self-proclaimed democratic opposition to the current government wants and can achieve

Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada about the change of generations in politics, work on past mistakes and the current agenda for political elites and society

The new regular session of the Verkhovna Rada started on September 6. It looks like actors on Ukraine’s political scene, probably with the exception of Petro Poroshenko's Bloc and Arseniy Yatseniuk’s People's Front, have great expectations and ambitious plans for this fall seasons. Major oligarchs are likely to step up their game. The situation in the presidential team is not at its best either

Is the President Administration ready for a snap election

The presidential party's approach to forming party lists and selecting candidates for single-member constituencies has divided it into a multitude of groups and even more basically independent MPs

The Cabinet is bound to be shuffled. The bargaining is already underway. The new one is unlikely to be a government of technocrats

Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign Affairs on Ukraine’s cooperation with Western partners and international organizations, the consequences of the Minsk agreement and the upcoming local elections

Hopes for stamping out corruption, reforming law enforcement bodies and transforming the country in accordance with the European values are futile, unless major flaws in the Ukrainian electoral law are eradicated

Unhappy, poorly dressed people, mostly elderly, trudged to the polls to cast their votes for one of the richest people in the Donetsk region

The parliamentary election may bring only few “new faces” to parliament

The electoral fiasco of the Communist Party in Ukraine does not mean less demand for social populism. It only brings to the political arena new players that are better fits for the new structure of Ukrainian society

With the old election law in place, the parliamentary campaign cannot radically upgrade the Verkhovna Rada now. Still, it will make it more adequate to the challenges faced by the state

The Parliament inherited from Yanukovych holds an imminent threat to Ukraine, yet the breakup of pro-European coalition is potentially as dangerous

Party of Regions’ and Communist Party MPs, as well as independent MPs, the total of 244, have voted to hold the parliamentary session at an alternative location, 6/8 Bankova Street, rather than the current parliament building at Hrushevskoho Street.

Is the Vlasenko case a mechanism of pressure against disloyal MPs or an element of geopolitical provocation?

The Party of Regions` attempts to intimidate the opposition with early elections or responsibility for the breakdown of European integration have not given the desired result so far, so an escalation of resistance can be expected in the near future

When yet another acquaintance of mine asked me, for the fourth time this week, why I am not running for a seat in parliament, I had to stop and think. Is the career of a politician so attractive in the view of so many people that it is worth abandoning your profession (which you may happen to love), competence, previously acquired practical experience, an established mode of life and, finally, your circle of friends? (The milieu of which inevitably changes in the upper stratosphere.)

The last session of the present parliament could prove most unpredictable

The party in power is afraid of losing control of parliament when most MPs are focusing their efforts on conducting pre-election campaigns.

The position of the Verkhovna Rada’s Speaker on the language law, regardless of his motivation, will determine his political future and his place in Ukrainian history