Politics in Ukraine: the Games Continue Lections to the Verkhovna Rada Dominated the First Half of the Year in the Arena of Ukrainian Politics

No. 52 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1998 5 1998: THE YEAR IN REVIEW Politics in Ukraine: the games continue lections to the Verkhovna Rada dominated the first half of the year in the arena of Ukrainian politics. Although the election season officially began a month before the March 29 vote and should have ended Ewith the referendum, for all practical purposes it lasted until mid-July, because the newly elected national deputies in 19 attempts could not elect a chairman to lead the parliamentary body. (See related story, “A very long year of Rada elections.”) Elections aside, the political topics that dominated were much the same as those of the past two years, namely, stalled economic reform, corruption and abuse of power, controversies in Russia-Ukraine relations and fric- tion in the Ukraine-U.S. strategic partnership. There were national celebrations and demonstrations, and an announcement that Ukraine’s biggest single private bene- factor, George Soros had given up on Ukraine and soon would cease operations in the country. The year ended and began with the name of Pavlo Lazarenko in the headlines. On December 26, 1997, Procurator General Oleh Lytvak announced he had begun Efrem Lukatsky an investigation into the unlawful use and concealment of currency earnings associated with the personal and busi- President Leonid Kuchma was more successful in the Pavlo Lazarenko began the year with his name in the ness dealings of the former prime minister. realm of foreign policy than on domestic issues. headlines and ended it likewise. Mr. Lytvak said the Procurator General’s Office had he had requested, because the accused could not prove cost of the project was in fact $57 million, and not the obtained documents that Mr. Lazarenko owned Swiss the money was not part of that held in the now-frozen $80 million cited by some members of the parliamentary bank accounts into which he had illegally transferred Swiss bank accounts. It also extended his detention for a faction Yednist, which is controlled by Mr. Lazarenko. money from Ukraine. month as the government investigation continued. Mr. Pustovoitenko also said he had forewarned contrac- Mr. Lazarenko rebutted the charges involved in the However, three days later Mr. Lazarenko was released on tors and subcontractors to detail all costs because he had investigation in a sharply worded commentary in the a bond of $3 million extended to him by an unnamed foreseen that such charges could be made. President newspaper Vseukrainskie Viedomosti and called the associate. Kuchma decided to keep his prime minister, who by action by the public prosecutor a concerted attack against The Lazarenko-controlled newspapers were not the September had become the longest serving head of gov- himself and the Hromada Party, which he heads, to dis- only ones to feel the weight of the government’s ax in ernment of the four who have held the office during credit them before elections to the Verkhovna Rada. 1998. On June 14 the local Kyiv newspaper Kievskie President Kuchma’s tenure. “I want to make it clear that I do not have any kind of Viedomosti was slapped with a hefty libel verdict. A Kyiv Mr. Pustovoitenko overcame a second attempt by the foreign currency accounts,” said Mr. Lazarenko in the court ordered the newspaper to pay Ukraine’s Internal Verkhovna Rada to remove him later in the year, when he newspaper rebuttal. Affairs Minister Yurii Kravchenko, a close political ally and his Cabinet of Ministers survived an attempt by left- Mr. Lazarenko, who had once been a close associate of of President Kuchma, $2.5 million for accusing the min- ist national deputies to bring down the government on President Leonid Kuchma, was dismissed from his post ister of purchasing a $115,000 Mercedes Benz automo- October 13. as the president’s prime minister in the summer of 1997 bile with money stolen from a fund for the families of The Verkhovna Rada action was spurred by the for being soft on corruption and slow in moving on eco- slain policemen. Socialist, Communist and Hromada parties, who accused nomic reforms. He and the president quickly became bit- Volodymyr Mostovii, editor of the newspaper Zerkalo the government of failing to bring the country out of its ter political enemies. Nedeli, said the action by the Kyiv district court was “a economic malaise and past the financial crisis that had In what appeared to be a protracted government action purely political action directed at closing the newspaper” gripped the country in the fall. against Mr. Lazarenko and his followers – and which by forcing it into “an unsustainable economic condition.” seemed to support the theory pushed by Mr. Lazarenko of In 1997 Kievskie Viedomosti publisher Mykhailo Hetman assassinated a government conspiracy against him – two newspapers Brodsky had become a vocal opponent of the policies of Another politician, respected and admired more than associated with Mr. Lazarenko were shut down by the the Kuchma administration. Unable to pay, the newspa- most in Ukraine, first failed to get re-elected to the government in the months prior to elections. per shut down in November. Verkhovna Rada in March and then lost his life to an First came the January 8 printing ban on Pravda Mr. Brodsky had already faced prosecutorial ire earlier assassin’s bullet on April 22. Vadym Hetman, the first Ukrainy for allegedly being improperly registered with in 1998. He was arrested on March 10, a little more than chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine and the chair- government authorities. Then, on March 20, a week two weeks before the Verkhovna Rada elections in which man of the Ukrainian Interbank Currency Exchange at before the parliamentary elections, Vseukrainskie he was a candidate, and charged with receiving large the time of his death, who was considered a level-headed, Viedomosti was forced to close after it lost a $1.8 million sums of money in illegal trade activity. He was released elder statesmen of Ukrainian politics, was killed after he suit filed against it for publishing a story in which it was from jail and the charges were suspended only after Mr. entered his apartment building. stated that a Ukrainian soccer star was soon to leave the Brodsky won a seat in the Verkhovna Rada, which gave The reason for his murder still has not been deter- team Kyiv Dynamo and sign with an Italian soccer club. him immunity from criminal prosecution. mined, nor have any arrests been made. Ukrainian inves- The Kuchma-Lazarenko war continued on and off The strong-handed control of the Ukrainian press by tigators contend that the killing was due either to his throughout the year, reaching varying decibels of shrill- the Kuchma administration was criticized by several work on Interbank Currency Exchange board or to his ness until December 2, when Mr. Lazarenko was arrested Western media watchdog groups, including the European private business dealings. at the French-Swiss border near the city of Basel while Institute for the Media and the New York-based The assassination of Mr. Hetman – not the first of its attempting to enter Switzerland on a Panamanian pass- Committee to Protect Journalists, which sent a letter of kind in Ukraine – along with an ongoing problem with port. protest to President Kuchma in response to the closing of corruption, promoted the depiction of Ukraine as the The Ukrainian national deputy was promptly trans- Pravda Ukrainy. wild, wild east of the post-Soviet era. That image was ferred to Geneva, where he was initially detained and “CPJ condemns the shutdown and silencing of Pravda further enhanced by a report by Transparency held in a prison cell while an investigative judge trav- Ukrainy by the Ukrainian Ministry of Information as a International, a non-governmental organization that fights eled to Kyiv to further investigate charges of money violation of all international norms of free expression,” corruption in the business sector, which ranked Ukraine laundering. said the organization’s letter. as the 16th most corrupt country of the 85 countries it Hromada Party supporters claimed the Ukrainian gov- In what many purveyors of the Ukrainian political had studied. ernment had asked that Mr. Lazarenko be detained, while scene considered an attempt by the Lazarenko crowd to Although the Ukrainian Legal Foundation, which Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said the situation was extract revenge for the government’s actions against the released the report in Ukraine in October, said corruption complicated by the fact that Mr. Lazarenko had presented former prime minister, the Hromada Party announced in Ukraine was more related to the redistribution of himself as a Panamanian citizen. that its investigation into the lavish government-funded wealth among the power elites, the fact remained that in Ukraine did not request the extradition of Mr. renovation of Ukraine’s central concert hall, the Ukraina 1998, with the economy going nowhere, the poor suf- Lazarenko, and the national deputy refused Ukrainian Palace of Culture, had turned up evidence of financial fered most. Embassy assistance. improprieties. The project was directed by current Prime The ongoing economic crisis, which leaves the gov- The Swiss government remained close-mouthed about Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko during his tenure as min- ernment unable to pay workers and pensioners nearly 2 the case and would only say that money in Swiss bank ister of the Cabinet of Ministers. billion hrv in back wages and pensions, brought striking accounts thought to be under the control of Mr. On January 16, the Verkhovna Rada passed a non- government workers to the city’s capital several times. Lazarenko had been frozen after Swiss bank officials had binding resolution recommending that the prime minister Most active were the coal miners, who organized a 500- launched an investigation into Mr.

Load more