Lazarenko to Appear in US Federal Court June 21
The congress of the Hromada Party held in Kyiv on June 12 nominated the
party's leader, former Premier Pavlo Lazarenko for President. Mr. Lazarenko
is now in San Francisco pending a court decision on granting him political
asylum in the US.
Lawyers think the law On the Election of the President allows registering
Mr. Lazarenko as a candidate for the Ukrainian presidency.
Party deputy leader Volodymyr Takhtiy told the Center for Journalistic
Research that Mr. Lazarenko had already been nominated as a presidential
candidate in eight cities of Ukraine: Kyiv, Kryvy Rih, Kharkiv, Khmelnytsky,
Mykolayiv, Sevastopol, Kirovohrad, and Chernihiv. Hromada members are sure
their leader "can become the firm hand Ukraine needs so badly." But observers
believe Mr. Lazarenko will play no significant role at this year's presidential
elections.
According to president of the Ukrainian Perspectives Foundation, Serhiy
Odarych and political scientist at the Academy of Political Sciences Zoryslav
Samchuk, Mr. Lazarenko will not be able to garner more than 1.5-2% of the
votes in the presidential elections. They think he will receive the votes
of those who have an extremely negative attitude to the current authorities,
and some people will do so out of gratitude for the time when "he fed them."
As of today, the Hromada Party no longer has the structures it had a
year ago. A large number of votes have been snatched away by the very fact
of raising charges against Mr. Lazarenko in Verkhovna Rada. On February
18, the Prosecutor-General sanctioned his arrest. He is being charged
under three articles of the Criminal Code entailing responsibility for
gross embezzlement of public funds, illegal use of hard-currency accounts,
and the abuse of office. According to the prosecutor's office, 4 million
Swiss francs and $2 million in Ukrainian public funds were secretly transferred
into Lazarenko's accounts in Swiss banks between 1993 and 1996.
The San Francisco Chronicle recently wrote that "rumors about
Mr. Lazarenko's political corruption caused by his unfathomable wealth
had begun to circulate" well before the criminal case was opened.
These rumors became louder after he used the services of a foreign corporation
last year to purchase a posh villa on the San Francisco Bay coast with
five swimming-pools, worth about $7 million. The American newspaper writer
affirms that Mr. Lazarenko is being accused of transferring $72.1 million
in state funds to his Swiss bank accounts in 1996-1998. The money was received
from foreign companies involved in a number of economic transactions with
the Ukrainian government.
On June 21, the former Premier is to appear in San Francisco Federal
Court which will hear the case on his extradition to Switzerland. The Swiss
prosecutors had earlier requested the US extradite the Ukrainian citizen
to identify his complicity in money laundering in that country.
The San Francisco Chronicle notes that "an attempt to extradite
the former head of government of a foreign state is always unusual. But
this case is even stranger, for Mr. Lazarenko participates in the Ukrainian
presidential campaign concurrently with struggling for the right to stay
in the US."
According to political scientists, such notoriety and figures have made
Mr. Lazarenko a political corpse, who cannot count on public support. All
they think he can do now is to make the best possible deal in selling compromising
materials on incumbent President Leonid Kuchma to some other presidential
candidates.
In the words of Mr. Samchuk, "Today Mr. Lazarenko can share with the
Left electorate compromising documents showing how he and the current President
divided up the money for Russian gas 2-3 years ago. Thanks to their efforts,
Ukraine ran up a $1 billion debt."
By Inna KOLESNYKOVA, Center of Journalistic Research






