Pavlo Lazarenko Failed to Make the Best of a "Commercial Break"

Hromada leader Pavlo Lazarenko, who has just returned from France, did not feel like a winner despite the publicity created for him by Rukh and the People's Democratic Party. With regard to the "excelling" Rukh, Lazarenko told The Day that "some people really wanted me to leave so that they could blame all their sins on me."

The Hromada leader did not succeed in his attempts to lend an ideological coloring to the conflict by saying that "Rukh was driven by some kind of jealousy because I worked very closely with the socialists in the European Council Parliament Assembly."

Apparently, the Hromada leader's nervousness is based mostly on the fact that while he was out of the country, the mythical rumor about an imminent split in the Hromada faction turned into a reality. Although Pavlo Lazarenko claimed that "there would be no split in Hromada; there is nothing to split, and we have never been as monolithic as we are now," he did acknowledge that after the New Year several deputies might leave the faction. "The most we can expect to happen is the migration of two or three people," admitted the Hromada leader (a source close to Hromada even told The Day those two or three names: Tymoshenko, Turchynov, and Yeliashkevych). It was very obvious that Lazarenko did not feel comfortable discussing this subject. Answering the question of how reliable the information is about several "top" Hromada members being persistently offered ministerial portfolios, Lazarenko said abruptly, "Good for them!" and walked away. Interestingly enough, some parliamentary circles are already naming Kyrylenko, a candidate for ministerial post, to be the first outgoing Hromada member.