KYIV, Oct. 18 - A massive anti-corruption street protest outside the parliament building continued for the second day in Ukraine as President Petro Poroshenko had refused to meet protesters on Wednesday.

The protesters demand Parliament to approve three major anti-corruption measures that Poroshenko has promised three years ago, but has failed to deliver.

Five lawmakers spearheading the protest on Wednesday planned to meet Poroshenko to address these demands, but the presidential administration had refused to let the entire group in.

“The administration has refused to receive the entire group,” Serhiy Leshchenko, one of the organizers, wrote on his Facebook account.

Meanwhile, former Georgian leader and former Odessa governor Mikheil Saakashvili, the leader of the protest, on Wednesday visited the protest camp erected outside the Parliament building, a sign protesters prepare for a long standoff.

Saakashvili on Tuesday urged Poroshenko to step down if he is unable to fight corruption.

The protesters issued three major demands for the country's president.

The most crucial involved stripping lawmakers of immunity from prosecution and launching an anti-corruption court that Kiev's lenders at the IMF have labeled a "benchmark" of Ukraine's progress toward Western standards.

A third demand called for changes to the election system that would help independent lawmakers gain seats.

An anti-riot officer and three demonstrators were hurt on Tuesday in scuffles that involved nearly 5,000 people in the heart of Kiev, police said.

Poroshenko was a Western favorite who rose to power when a bloody 2014 revolution toppled a Kremlin-backed regime and pulled Ukraine out of Russia's historic orbit.

But Poroshenko's critics fear that he has put the breaks on institutional changes and the difficult task of eliminating state graft in order to preserve the existing political order.

Although the protest remains mostly peaceful, the government must be very careful in how they address the problem to avoid escalation.

“Although the protests are unlikely to foment a second Euromaidan movement, they could still present a challenge to the Ukrainian government,” Stratfor, a U.S.-based strategic forecasting firm, said in a report.

“There's no guarantee that the parliament will pass the legislation protesters are demanding. Even if they do, it may not be enough to appease them,” the first said.

“There's also a much greater risk of violence at the demonstrations if they attract more aggressive opposition or ultra-nationalist groups,” Stratfor said. (nr/ez)