The video was published on YouTube by the politician.
According to Yatsenyuk, Ukraine has proven throughout its history that it is a true fighter for democracy, and today it is fighting for democracy and for the whole world, thanks to Ukrainian military personnel and the Ukrainian nation.
The politician did not agree with the assessment of The Economist, which annually publishes an index of democracy development, that Ukraine supposedly belongs to a “hybrid regime” – between democracy and totalitarianism.
During questions to Yatsenyuk, they noted that absolutely all the presidents of Ukraine, except for Leonid Kravchuk, allegedly “always tried to expand their powers” and “essentially switched to an authoritarian regime.” The politician was asked whether Ukrainians simply did not live to see the president who would abide by the Constitution, or whether this was a flaw in the system of power itself.
“First of all, I will say that not only President Kravchuk. President [Виктор] Yushchenko, in principle, was a democrat. I was with him. […] Moreover, even the President [Петр] Poroshenko was a democrat. Do you know why? Because we had a coalition and I was prime minister. It was impossible not to be a democrat,” Yatsenyuk replied.
He added that it so happened that in 2019 “there was a decision of the people of Ukraine – to transfer the full, one hundred percent mandate of all power to the president [Владимиру] Zelensky.”
“He got 70-odd percent in the elections. And for the first time in the history of Ukraine, he received a mono-majority, which no one had before. That’s why it’s called democracy. That was the will of the Ukrainian people,” the ex-prime minister emphasized.
