Ukrainian PM urges reshuffle of ruling coalition to avoid snap elections

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk on Wednesday said that the country's ruling coalition needs to be reshuffled with the involvement of new political parties in a bid to avoid snap elections.

In his first public remarks after surviving a no-confidence vote in the parliament Tuesday, Yatsenyuk disclosed he was in talks with various political groups, including the Radical party, about a possible partnership.

"We have already started consultations with political forces, including the Radical Party, on how to reshape the government, update the coalition agreement and attract additional staff to the cabinet to continue moving in the right direction on our reform path," Yatsenyuk said at a government meeting.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Tuesday asked the country's Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk and the Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin to resign amid lack of public confidence, which triggered the no-confidence vote in the parliament later in the day. The parliament failed to pass the no-confidence motion against the government led by Prime Minister Yatsenyuk as the motion didn't get enough votes.

While describing the ongoing parliamentary crisis in Ukraine as a "provocation aimed at prompting snap elections," Yatsenyuk said that the ruling coalition needs to be reformatted to reflect the changes on the country's political arena.

Earlier on Wednesday, Fatherland Party of Ukraine's former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko announced its withdrawal from the ruling coalition over the alleged corruption and shadow schemes inside it.

Meanwhile, another political force -- the Samopomich Party has called an emergency meeting to decide their further political fate in the coalition over an "oligarchic coup" in the country.

The harsh statements from the political groups came after the Ukrainian government survived Tuesday's no-confidence vote in the parliament, which some lawmakers described as "falsified" and "based on collusion between Yatsenyuk, President Petro Poroshenko and oligarchs."

The pro-Western parliamentary coalition, called "European Ukraine," was formed in November 2014 by five political groups. Apart from the Fatherland and the Samopomich parties, the coalition consisted of the Solidarity Party that backs Poroshenko, the People's Front Party of Yatsenyuk and the Radical Party of politician Oleh Lyashko.

The Radical Party announced its withdrawal from the coalition in September 2015. Endit