Four years of political vendetta
The circle closed up: both leaders of political blocks (BYuT and NU-NS) who had won the parliamentary elections in 2007 were sentenced for a long imprisonment. “I will not be let out from this cage”, Yurii Lutsenko said while the judge Vovk was monotonously muttering the verdict. Lutsenko’s team-mates hoped against hope to the last, they hoped that the common sense would win and Lutsenko would be given a suspended sentence (nobody expected the verdict of not guilty). However, the miracle did not happen. He was sentenced to four years of imprisonment and seizure of property.
Ironically, this process has done some good to Lutsenko as a politician. How did the people take him before? As a merry jester who used to get the works all the time: fight with Chernovetsky and the Frankfurt police…
Now everybody forgot about Frankfurt. From a merry jester Lutsenko turned into a martyr and a victim. His political image has been re-loaded. He will leave the prison as an absolutely different politician with an absolutely different store of knowledge and background.
“Obviously, the government is most of all afraid of Yurii Lutsenko’s arrowy tongue. If he had been released he would have become the hero of the marathon ‘Viktor Yanukovych – two years on probation’ and other informational programs and websites. He would have never traded his freedom for loyalty to this government,” Iryna Herashchenko who came to the Pechersk court to support Lutsenko told The Day. “Certainly, he would have held the line. His gift of the tribune, orator and bright oppositionist is what the Ukrainian authorities are afraid of the most.”
Did you expect this verdict?
“I was asked by fellow-MPs: ‘Ira, what does your woman’s intuition tell you?’ My woman’s intuition told me that this day would not be happy for Lutsenko or his family. However, my woman’s intuition also tells me that he will be released earlier. The current government is losing people’s support by leaps and bounds.
“Thus everyone understood that Viktor Yanukovych’s team is not going to fulfill the resolution of the PACE.
“They decided to hold their ground regardless of all the negative consequences it might have for Ukraine…”
Marie-Louise Beck, member of the German Bundestag (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) called Yurii Lutsenko a victim of the political vendetta. “The process against him was unfair, it was witnessed in detail by the observers from the Danish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights. Moreover, the ‘crimes’ he was charged with do not correspond to this term of imprisonment even if the public prosecutor could have proved all the accusations against him.”
And one more thing. There is an opinion that Tymoshenko and Lutsenko did not change the system when they were at power. So, the current situation is partially their fault. It is true that the “orange team” that had spent too much time to sort things out is to blame for the current developments in Ukraine. There were a lot of staff mistakes. It is no coincidence that 15 people out of 20 members of People’s Self-Defence Party sold Lutsenko and became turncoats.
However, on the other hand, all the people are outraged by the Pechersk justice and express it in the social networks. Nobody goes into the streets! It is significant. The society has to mature to say “no” to lawlessness and arbitrary decisions by judges.
