Hmm...
Good morning. Here are few tweets we noticed while we noticed while the blog was in "snooze mode":
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for May 21, 2019. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Thanks for reading and take care.
Ukraine's Zelenskiy Calls Snap Polls, Wants Changes To Electoral Law
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
KYIV – Ukraine’s parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy says he will convene an extraordinary session of the legislature on May 22, two days after the inauguration of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Earlier on May 21, Zelenskiy issued a decree to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada and set snap parliamentary elections for July 21.
He also asked Parubiy to call an emergency session of parliament to discuss amendments to the electoral law.
Zelenskiy has called for electing the next chamber entirely on party lists, arguing that the current system in which part of parliament is elected in single-ballot races favors corruption.
A comedian and actor with no previous political experience, Zelenskiy has taken the helm of a country of 44 million that faces deep-seated corruption, economic challenges, and a deadly war in eastern Ukraine.
!["I had no doubt that [Zelenskiy] would win the presidential race," says lawyer Andriy Bohdan.](https://gdb.rferl.org/03ea528d-0b1a-417f-be2c-ddb5477a7d36_w100_r1.jpg)
Zelenskiy appointed on May 21 a new chief of the General Staff to head the Ukrainian military amid a conflict with Russia-backed separatists who hold parts of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and picked his legal adviser Andriy Bohdan to head the presidential administration.
Zelenskiy defeated incumbent Petro Poroshenko by a wide margin in a presidential runoff vote on April 21.
The 41-year-old ran for president without the support of a political party and has no formal backing in parliament now.
After holding talks with Parubiy and leaders of parliamentary factions at the presidential administration building in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said that the main reason behind his decision to dissolve parliament and call early elections was “citizens' very low [level of] trust" in that institution.
Zelenskiy said that as president and "guarantor of the constitution," he "must safeguard the rights of Ukraine's citizens," and added that the "judicial reason" for the dissolution of parliament is that "there has been no coalition since 2016."
The ruling European Ukraine coalition was established in November 2014 and consisted of the party of Zelenskiy’s predecessor President Petro Poroshenko, Poroshenko's Bloc, the People's Front, Samopomich (Self-Reliance), Batkivshchyna (Fatherland), and the Radical Party. The latter three political parties quit the coalition in 2015-2016.
The People's Front announced its decision to quit the coalition last week, after which Parubiy announced that coalition was dissolved.
Under the constitution, new parliamentary elections must be held within two months of the decree dissolving parliament.
The next parliamentary elections had been set for late October. As he starts a five-year term, early elections are a chance for Zelenskiy to strengthen his position and sideline allies of Poroshenko.
Opponents have questioned whether Zelenskiy has the authority to disband parliament under the constitution because of the timing of his inauguration, but there has been little sign of vocal resistance to his plan since he announced it on May 20.
Hours after Zelenskiy was sworn in, Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman said he will resign on May 22 and suggested that he will run in the snap elections.
"I proposed to the president and the parliament that we together form a new agenda and very quickly begin to make decisions that would make Ukraine stronger," Hroysman said. "The president has chosen a different path."
Zelenskiy on May 21 promoted Lieutenant General Ruslan Khomchak to be the chief of Ukraine's General Staff after dismissing Viktor Muzhenko, according to a presidential decree.
The 51-year-old Khomchak previously served as the chief of staff of the military's ground forces.
Muzhenko had served as the head of the country’s armed forces since 2014.
The war in the region known as the Donbas has killed some 13,000 people since April 2014 and Russia continues to control Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula it occupied and seized the same year.