The day of “organized polemics”

A number of scandalous items topped the agenda of last Friday’s session in parliament. A particularly heated debate was expected after a report by Volodymyr Stretovych, chairman of the parliamentary Committee to Combat Organized Crime and Corruption, on the way public prosecutors are supervising the fight against organized crime. In his report Stretovych claims that Prosecutor-General Sviatoslav Piskun is implicated in shady schemes of acquiring bread-baking companies “through his relatives and the children and wives of other highly-placed officials.” In consequence, the state-run enterprise, Ukrainian Bakeries, “has incurred millions of dollars in losses.” However, his report did not yield any practical results. The Ukrainian parliament did not pass any decisions on the Stretovych report, although three draft resolutions were tabled, one of them suggesting a vote of no confidence in Prosecutor-General Piskun. But, as First Vice-Speaker Adam Martyniuk explained, this draft resolution cannot be put to a vote because passing a vote of no confidence in the prosecutor-general requires a certain procedure: for example, parliament must hear the prosecutor-general’s report.

Meanwhile, the jewel of last Friday’s parliamentary session was the ongoing row between socialist Mykola Rudkovsky and Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn. Speaking from the rostrum, Rudkovsky vowed to bring a libel suit against Lytvyn and sue the People’s Party’s newspaper for publishing Kuchmagate materials. “Maybe this trial will be a prelude to the one on the Gongadze case,” the MP added. According to Rudkovsky, Lytvyn “declared before all of Europe that the recordings made in Kuchma’s office were fabricated and that the evidence was questionable,” whereas leading international experts, including the US Federal Bureau of Investigations, and the Security Service of Ukraine have all confirmed the authenticity of the tapes made by ex-presidential bodyguard Major Mykola Melnychenko, in which “Lytvyn discusses with Kuchma how to silence an innocent person and cover up the crime,” Rudkovsky said, adding, “the Socialist Party of Ukraine demands that the case be tried.” This should be done so that no one can speculate during the elections on “an issue that was understood a long time ago.”

Replying to Rudkovsky, Lytvyn fired back accusations of organizing the crime against the murdered journalist. “Obviously, this hysteria, these attacks show that people are getting closer to the organizers of this affair, who will get their comeuppance.” He also said he was ready to confront Rudkovsky in a court of law.