Poroshenko's party "ready" for early parliamentary elections
KYIV. May 20 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian political party Petro Poroshenko Bloc 'Solidarity' has announced its readiness for parliamentary elections, whether regularly scheduled or extraordinary.
"We are ready for elections, organizationally and substantively," the party said in a statement on its website on Monday.
The president's right to terminate the Verkhovna Rada's mandate early should be exercised in accordance with the national constitution, the statement said.
"Democracy is about procedures; an absence of procedure amounts to authoritarianism. A possible model of such a mechanism is Petro Poroshenko's legally impeccable decision in 2014 to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada. The president has the right to dissolve Verkhovna Rada but this right is not unconditional and should occur in full compliance with the Constitution.
"The party is ready to defend the values it has defended for the past five years, in particular Ukraine's integration into EU and NATO, which is very important for Ukraine and which unfortunately the newly-elected President Zelensky failed to mention in his inauguration speech," it said.