Parliament's ruling in the Lazarenko case will, of course, have serious
political consequences. In the first place, there are several aspects to
the case: political, financial, clans, underworld, and psychological. The
Verkhovna Rada's resolution left its trace in each and every one of them.
Secondly, the solution to the Lazarenko problem was the result of a political
intrigue and the latter is not over yet. Thus, we will concentrate on the
obvious consequences of voting in Parliament on February 17 without going
into hazy details like why the Communists gave up on Comrade Pavlo or how
badly Leonid Kuchma damaged Oleksandr Moroz, etc. The fact remains that
Day's attitude to Mr. Lazarenko when in office, and even later when he
stepped down but remained influential, was objectively critical, so it
is only logical for our authors to continue in the same vein.
REFLECTION OF THE SYSTEM
By Tetiana KOROBOVA, The Day (February 17)
"Lazarenko, Give Us $1,000,000!" Young pickets carrying these posters
met Solons on their way to the Verkhovna Rada February 16.
Judging, however, from the General Prosecutor's speech in Verkhovna
Rada, Pavlo Lazarenko is hardly in a position to meet this demand even
if he wanted to, considering all his heavy spending on bribes, kickbacks,
and other skullduggery. After impressive figures carried by the media,
referring to reliable sources, ranging from $40 million to $1 billion,
the officially stated bank accounts totaling some 4.5 million Swiss francs
sounded very anticlimactic, as did the damage Mr. Lazarenko is claimed
to have inflicted on the Ukrainian state in 1993-97: over $2 million. Mykhailo
Potebenko's sudden decision to address the Verkhovna Rada was caused by
the pressing need to have the Deputies adopt in camera hearing procedures.
The General Prosecutor explained this need by an "arrangement made with
the Swiss side." It was some time before Mr. Chobit, member of the Standing
Orders, Ethics, and Work Organization Committee, made it to the tribune
(remarkably, the blockade was mainly from Rukh). Emotionally and resolutely
he announced that there is not a single document from Switzerland requesting
in camera hearings, and that "no evidence has been presenting to indicate
any criminal offenses; this is a political case," meaning that there should
be "public hearings with live broadcast, so that all of Ukraine can know
what is going on." After this statement word was spread in the lobby about
$5,000 being offered for every vote backing Pavlo Lazarenko. Apparently,
not all of his bank accounts have been unearthed.
It is interesting to note that new details have been added to this intriguing
picture, shedding light on the procrastination of the Lazarenko case. CIS
Executive Secretary Berezovsky flew to Kyiv. Does this mean that Mr. Lazarenko's
promise (carried by The New York Times) to tell about how money
was collected for election campaigns, name names, and identify the bank
accounts supporting Leonid Kuchma has hit home? Or that a sore spot has
been touched somewhere in the vast expanses of Russia whence elections
in Ukraine received tangible support or where Pavlo Lazarenko did some
lucrative if illicit business? Or that the heavy pressure being exerted
on Mr. Berezovsky needs precisely this international scandal to gain the
required scope and momentum? Or that the CIS Executive Secretary, faced
with the need to save himself, is now seeking Mr. Kuchma's aid will objectively
assist Pavlo Lazarenko? In response to these questions, an informed source
at the Presidential Administration told The Day that there are two
interconnected versions: "First: as CIS Executive Secretary, Berezovsky
can get off scot-free if aided by Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Second: the Lazarenko
case may yield facts that took place when Berezovsky was Secretary of the
Russian Security Council and Lazarenko Prime Minister of Ukraine." The
said source added that at present Berezovsky has one stable partner in
Ukraine, a Mr. Rabinowicz whose role in Ukraine in general and Mr. Kuchma's
destiny in particular remains to be ascertained. In other words, Pavlo
Lazarenko could make his own contribution to this monumental project.
Other sources, discussing subjects having nothing to do with Berezovsky,
intimate that Pavlo Lazarenko can still make a deal with the President
or his people with the former Premier. In this sense Oleh Lytvak, former
Acting General Prosecutor, took a very interesting stand. In an interview
with The Day prior to the parliamentary hearings he declared, "The
Lazarenko case is already history. Whether or not the Verkhovna Rada grants
the General Prosecutor's request will not change the fact that his political
career is over. What we have to do now is make public the names of all
those others who built fortunes on the privatization of the Zaporizhzhia
Ferrous Alloy Plant (sold for a meager amount in hryvnias) or of nine district
heating companies - all this contrary to current legislation - or the legitimacy
of certain firms operating during tax holidays. I am afraid that before
long they will once again turn to the General Prosecutor the way people
call the ambulance: Please! We need help now!..."
ANTI-NATURAL SELECTION
By Tetiana KOROBOVA, The Day (February 18)
Verkhovna Rada heard on February 17 the request of the General Prosecutor
to consent to the prosecution of Pavlo Lazarenko in his absence.
This was no longer unexpected after it became known that Mr. Lazarenko
had left the country. However, it should be noted that a non-scheduled
appearance of the General Prosecutor at Verkhovna Rada shortly before,
who tried and failed to push through the issue of an in camera hearing,
was a good prologue for the coming show of Mr. Lazarenko brandishing his
long-awaited compromising material. But the concert failed to happen: the
play of nerves showed the President's side had a stronger immunity, while
Mr. Lazarenko is laid up sick in a cold sweat in the faraway Greece.
This only confirmed earlier information that the Communist and Peasant
Party factions had decided to vote consenting to Mr. Lazarenko's prosecution
and arrest. In fact, as informed sources report, this is the reason why
Mr. Lazarenko had "slipped away," for he received a reliable report on
the deal between Communist leaders and the President.
The deal was not about a non-aggression pact but about the guarantees
of existence in the parallel worlds of those in power hold out in Ukraine
and Mr. Lazarenko abroad. Moreover, one of those who had been "doing" Mr.
Lazarenko told The Day correspondent that the Parliament's need
to "betray" Mr. Lazarenko was connected with his personal qualities: "For
agreements to be observed, he has to be constantly kept in a trap. He must
understand he should keep silent and what will happen if he doesn't."
According to The Day's information, Mr. Lazarenko had two conditions
imposed on him. In response, the authorities guarantee there will be no
attempts to bother him abroad, involving Interpol, etc. According to a
different source, it is CIS Executive Secretary Boris Berezovsky who offered
to guarantee the deal between those in power and Mr. Lazarenko during his
brief visit to Kyiv, for he himself is interested in Mr. Lazarenko's silence
about his cooperation with Russia's best people. The source placed the
agreements in the following order: "Don't give the Left money and keep
a low profile."
The Left seem to be rather a broad term in our topic. It is not ruled
out that Communist leaders were forced to change more than once their attitude
to the Lazarenko affair by one main argument: Socialist leader Oleksandr
Moroz ceases to be their chief rival if he cannot count on Mr. Lazarenko's
capital. What Mr. Moroz himself thinks and counts on is of no importance
in this case. What is important is the fact that the interests of the Presidential
side and the Communist Party have again joined, and this in fact now determines
Mr. Lazarenko's fate.
Well-known lawyer Hryhory Omelchenko, once facing criminal charges for
what he calls the material collected and submitted about Mr. Lazarenko's
malfeasance and "another fifteen or so Dnipropetrovsk family members, thus
summed up the spectacle in an interview with The Day: "This is not
a struggle against corruption, it is only evidence that the Dnipropetrovsk
family has come unstuck. And the problem is that a Mafia-type state is
fighting renegades who wanted to occupy someone else's place in the criminal
hierarchy. In the Lazarenko case, he is hardly the locomotive, to use a
local underworld phrase. He is only one of the sleeping cars, while the
train is being drawn by a quite different locomotive..."
IN LAZARENKO CASE EVERYBODY LOSES
Iryna HAVRYLOVA, The Day (February 19)
On February 18 two Hromada members, Shekhovtsov and Nechyporuk, announced
at the morning session that they were quitting the now leaderless faction.
When asked by The Day if this mean that the rats were beginning to leave
a sinking ship, Viktor Shyshkin replied, "It means that the rats have just
shown their old treacherous selves."
No one of the remaining Hromada members admits to its falling apart,
yet everybody agrees that things are getting tough. Oleksandr Turchynov
says that a serious internal party discussion is underway that may result
in the appearance of two new parliamentary formations. In the meantime
leadership has been automatically assumed by Leonid Kosakivsky, Lazarenko's
second in command. "New" Hromada people believe that there will be not
more than fifteen Deputies left from among those who proposed to leave
Lazarenko honorary leader, so that he could send instructions from abroad.
Over twenty pragmatic People's Deputies are likely to join the new faction,
said to be headed by Yuliya Tymoshenko.
It is also quite probable that the new Hromada will have new allies.
According to Mr. Turchynov, cooperation with the Socialist Party and Oleksandr
Moroz (he voted against stripping Lazarenko of his immunity) is temporary.
He made it clear that the faction can no longer be referred to as Leftist
and will most likely settle somewhere in the Center.
INO WINNER IN LAZARENKO CASE
By Volodymyr ZOLOTARIOV, The Day (February 19)
Getting back to the vote, it should be noted that Parliament made the
decision not from legal arguments. Not at all. Mr. Lazarenko's explanations
with regard to the charges pressed against him sound convincing enough
and the General Prosecutor's Office did not refute them. Nor did Parliament
attempt discussing the pros and cons. Instead, it put the issue to the
vote and we all know the result. In this sense one might say that Pavlo
Lazarenko was stripped of his legislative immunity without sufficient legal
grounds, meaning that Parliament earned no dividends as a body supposed
to abide by considerations of law and justice (after all, in terms of political
intrigue, Pavlo Lazarenko, like Yukhym Zviahilsky, could be eventually
be "pardoned," something the Deputies voting for his criminal prosecution
should have considered before pressing the button).
Another point. Granting that Parliament made its decision proceeding
from reasons other than law and justice, the obvious inference is that
what decided it was something to do with politics. Of course, different
lawmakers had different political reasons, yet the predominant motive must
have been to prevent Leonid Kuchma from staging a referendum on parliamentary
immunity. Also, the legislators could not afford to look like protectors
of corruption. In a word, it was yet another political show, the only difference
being that Parliament did not write the script. Indeed, now the President
(whose information capacities are considerably larger than Parliament's)
will be telling everyone about how Verkhovna Rada had to surrender Lazarenko,
pressed by the administration and "irrefutable evidence." Moreover, that
Parliament admitted to the presence of corrupt People's Deputies and so
on. And if and when Lazarenko is "pardoned" Parliament will be to blame,
again, for failing to analyze the case and make the right decision (which
is true).
Lazarenko's being brought to account may not stop the President's anti-corruption
zeal but mark the beginning of a large scale campaign ending in that same
"immune deficiency" referendum. Moreover, the Solons might well find another
scapegoat and throw him to the wolves. Why not? Considering that they bought
such weak argumentation in the Lazarenko case. Of all people they should
know that any citizen in this country could turn out a moral pervert, mobster,
child molester, or a Paraguayan spy, so long as the law enforcement authorities
dig deep enough and are really determined to come up with one. Now this
is something people rubbing shoulders with the President should think about
above all. If they do not, so much the worse for them. Those believing
that with Lazarenko down the President, who constantly needs someone to
struggle against, will be denied an opponent are very wrong. Throughout
the six years of his being in office there has not been a single day without
publicly branded enemies. After all, there is always Verkhovna Rada as
such. In a word, by going along with the administration, Parliament played
the village bumpkin in a comedy written by the Presidential Administration.
Also, doing away with Lazarenko and Hromada will have a negative effect
on both Parliament and society. The non-Left Deputies will suffer in the
first place. Red Hromada is a notion belonging to propaganda, not political
analysis. Hromada's siding with the Communists was caused by the situation
and quite natural under the circumstances. It did not make the party turn
any further to the Left. Another thing is that Hromada's ideology has always
left much to be desired. It is also obvious that Parliament will start
reshuffling its committees, accompanied by other unnecessary and unwelcome
fuss, telling badly on its performance and adding to the President's arguments
against it. Add here the fact that Hromada, falling apart, will mostly
likely add to the ranks of not political parties but all those irresponsible
"groups of deputies" which will not have to report to the electorate in
the next elections. Thus, Hromada's liquidation will raise the clannish
spirit to the detriment of the party one. Those pointing to Hromada's being
built mostly on the clannish principle are right, but a clan ceases to
be after becoming organized as a party, for there are party laws and Hromada
had two alternatives: getting to be a "normal" party or just step down
and vanish. What would have happened we will never know, but we know that
there were positive trends within NDP, Rukh, and Hromada.
Finally, Pavlo Lazarenko chose public politics when he joined Hromada.
Maybe he did it subconsciously or even against his will. As long as he
remained party leader there was nothing the President could do. Well, once
started everything must go on to its logical end. Lazarenko could win the
decisive duel with the President only if he appeared in Parliament and
spoke in his own defense. He did not, referring to some backstage negotiations
and deals, giving up public politics for the sake of intrigue. It means
that he agreed to play a game without rules. He lost. Maybe he thinks that
he won, simply by staying alive, and we have no right to condemn him for
his choice, but...







