Chairman of the Ukrainian Rada Razumkov Dismissed

The former head of the Servant of the People Party and number one on the its list for the 2019 elections was dismissed by the votes of its deputies. Earlier, Zelensky said that Razumkov “is not a member of this team”. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has dismissed its chairman Dmitry Razumkov. The decision was supported by 284 deputies at the plenary session on Thursday, October 7. In particular, 215 votes in support of this decision were given by the “Servant of the People” faction, 20 by the “Batkivshchyna” faction, six by the “Voice”; the “For the Future” and the “Dovira”– 19 and 18 votes, respectively; six votes by non-factional deputies. The factions “European Solidarity” and “Opposition Platform – For Life” did not support Razumkov's resignation. Razumkov headed the Servant of the People party from May to November 2019, being the first on its list in the early parliamentary elections in 2019. He has held the position of Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament since August 29, 2019. On Thursday, the faction of the Servant of the People Party nominated the first deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk for the post of head of the Parliament, and the head of the party Alexander Kornienko for the post of deputy speaker instead of Stefanchuk. The speaker of the Servant of the People faction YuliaPaliychuk wrote about this in her Telegram channel. Speaking from the rostrum of the Parliament on Thursday, Razumkov announced a change in the value principles with which the Servant of the People party came to power in 2019. “The principle of the rule of law was changed to political expediency, the principle of the right to personal opinion and freedom of speech was replaced by “either with us, or against us”, the principle of “same law for all” became “anything for friends, law for enemies”, and the principle that “offshore is a disgrace for the authorities” became “it's okay, every private entrepreneur has one”, Razumkov said. He noted that he “never rolled with it” and does not intend to do this in the future. “No position is worth the self-respect, dignity, and most importantly, people’s trust”, Razumkov said. On October 3,president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said at a press conference in Truskavets that the Servant of the People Party has “a million questions to the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada”. “We all understand that today he is not a member of this team, and he (Dmitry Razumkov. - Ed.) speaks about it quite openly”, the head of state said. At the same time, he called the situation related to the possible intra-factional resignation of the speaker and clarified that Razumkov had to support the party's position, in particular, on the issue of imposing sanctions “against Medvedchuk” or on the fight against the oligarchs, but “he went the other way”. DW