By Yevhen BRUSLYNOVSKY, The Day
This is the opinion of People's Deputy Yevhen Marchuk. Addressing the founding
meeting of the Into the Twenty-First Century with Yevhen Marchuk Association
in Cherkasy, he cited a number of facts he became familiar with as chairman
of the parliamentary Committee for Social Policies.
Some are truly striking: at the Cherkasy tuberculosis hospital Mr. Marchuk
recently visited, medical staff members faint from the hunger resulting
from long-term salary arrears. In Kirovohrad oblast, the authorities force
reproductive-age women, who apply for teaching positions, to commit in
writing that they will not give birth while they work in school in order
not to claim paid maternity leave. In one Carpathian foothills districts,
the authorities decided to hold the traditional feast of sending the cattle
to summer pastures under the President's patronage.
Mr. Marchuk not only gave facts of mismanagement, criminality, and ruin,
but also gave them a legal and economic assessment, and pointed out clear
ways of overcoming Ukraine's crisis. In his words, he must form a team,
as soon as late August, with which he will work after the elections as
President. By then, several hundred decrees will have been prepared, which
he thinks will make it possible to rectify the disastrous situation in
a matter of months.
Commenting harshly on the pressure exercised by office-holders with
respect to potential presidential candidates, Mr. Marchuk noted that, more
often than not, the former's actions fall under a criminal code article:
"Some may be thinking that the victors will be magnanimous, forgive, and
forget everything. Don't bet on it: we'll forget nothing."
As chairman of the Christian Democratic Union Volodymyr Stretovych pointed
out, the regime is afraid of Mr. Marchuk; they blocked any access to television
to him, even banning his very name. But there is a sphere, the thoughts
of people, where the regime is powerless. Chairman of the Ukrainian Peasant
Democratic Party Viktor Prysiazhniuk expressed certainty that very soon
the Our President Yevhen Marchuk coalition would be joined by more that
thirty additional political organizations in Ukraine.
The representative of the Cherkasy Association of Physicians, Liubov
Maiboroda, said, "We do not want to live in lies. We need a President who
is a personality, not just a puppet on the string of fat cats. In my opinion,
the leaders of other parties - Yuri Kostenko, Hennady Udovenko, and Vasyl
Onopenko - should support Yevhen Marchuk."
Cherkasy






