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Who took the Rada speaker's chair in October 2021?
Summary
A look back at the days around 11 October 2021, after Ukraine's parliament dismissed one speaker and elected another.
Who was running Ukraine's parliament on 11 October 2021, and how had the change come about? The answer lay in the preceding days, when the Verkhovna Rada replaced its speaker in a matter of 24 hours.
A dismissal on 7 October
On 7 October 2021, the Verkhovna Rada voted to remove Dmytro Razumkov from the post of speaker. As reported at the time, the dismissal followed his disagreements with President Volodymyr Zelensky and with the stance of the ruling Servant of the People party on legislation aimed at reducing the influence of Ukrainian oligarchs.
A successor on 8 October
The next day, 8 October 2021, the Rada elected Ruslan Stefanchuk as its speaker. By 11 October 2021, the chamber therefore had a new presiding officer, and the leadership question that had opened the week was formally settled.
The setting
The parliament in question was the 9th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's unicameral legislature, which meets in Kyiv and began its term on 29 August 2019. The change of speaker thus came during that convocation's term, with the ruling party and the president at odds with the man who had led the chamber.
The sequence was brief: a vote to dismiss on 7 October, a vote to elect a successor on 8 October. What it showed, in the terms reported then, was that the dispute over oligarch-related legislation had reached the top of the parliament itself.
