The IMF warns on support suspension amid political crisis mess

UKRAINE - In Brief 10 Feb 2016 by Dmytro Boyarchuk

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Today Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF, made it clear that Ukraine will not get money without resolving corruption issue. This statement will add fuel to the fire of political crisis which is unfolding at the country. Political elites are disoriented. They have never experienced that serious corruption scandal. In fact neither President Poroshenko, nor Prime-Minister Yatsenyuk knows what to do. Since both political players have lost large part of their popularity they do not see any reason for launching new parliament elections (and western donors also are against new elections at this stage). At the same time they are reluctant to appoint technocrat government (as the IMF, western diplomats and civil society leaders demand) since that will damage their ‘informal proceeds’. Against this backdrop everyone is lingering hoping that in some way the story will calm down and radical changes will not be needed. Interesting, on February 16 the Cabinet will be reporting to the parliament on 2015 results and will be presenting new program of the government for 2016. On that day MPs will have either to approve Yatsenyuk’s Cabinet for one more year or to appoint new government. According to insiders MPs are neither inclined to oust current Cabinet nor to approve it for one more year. In fact it looks like a political stalemate for all players. How this crisis might resolve? Unfortunately, happy-end is not secured. Preventing technocrats’ appointment at the Cabinet is the issue of survival for current political elites. The warning from the IMF is a bad news; however, losing sources of rent is much more scary for them. Theoretically opting fight with corruption is mor...