ANALYSIS: Are the authorities in Ukraine again targeting opposition leaders? (06/01/03)

ANALYSIS

Are the authorities in Ukraine again targeting opposition leaders?

by Taras Kuzio
RFE/RL Newsline

In late 2001, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma issued a lengthy decree outlining measures to ensure that the March 2002 parliamentary elections would be free and fair. In his state of the nation address to Parliament last month, President Kuchma likewise promised that the October 2004 presidential elections will be conducted in a "civilized, democratic manner in full compliance with current legislation."

But, as is so often the case in Ukraine and other CIS states, reality diverges from official rhetoric. During the 2002 campaign, the presidential administration abused its administration resources to favor the For a United Ukraine bloc, and the media failed to ensure a level playing field for all candidates. A secret document from the presidential administration that outlined detailed measures against the opposition was leaked to the opposition and the election-monitoring mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the electorate is skeptical of Kuchma's latest claim that next year's presidential election will be democratic. A March poll conducted by the Razumkov Center found that as many as 51 percent of Ukrainians believe the 2004 elections will not be free and fair, while only 20 percent think they will be.

Mr. Kuchma's claim that he will guarantee a free and fair election is unconvincing in the light of the activities of the presidential administration, especially since Viktor Medvedchuk was named to head that body in May 2002.

Mr. Medvedchuk is the long-time head of the Union of Ukrainian Lawyers (as well as the Social Democratic Party-United, or SDPU). Even though censorship is banned by the Constitution and Parliament recently amended the law on the media to criminalize censorship, last summer the presidential administration began sending secret instructions, known as "temnyky," to television stations advising them which political issues they should cover and which should be ignored.

Public skepticism has been reinforced by the government's seemingly selective use of corruption charges against Yuliia Tymoshenko and aides to former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko. Both Tymoshenko and Mr. Yushchenko now head opposition political blocs. The recently filed corruption charges against Volodymyr Bondar, former vice-chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine are widely perceived as aimed at discrediting Yushchenko, who headed the NBU in the 1990s.

High-ranking Our Ukraine member Oleh Rybachuk accused the SDPU of being behind the Bondar case, which has dragged on for five years. Mr. Rybachuk claims the case is "completely political." Four of the five banking "experts" who testified in the case have never worked in the banking system.

Oleksander Yeliashkevych, a former vice-chairman of the parliamentary Committee on Finances and Banking, who was granted asylum in the United States last year, has evidence that Messrs. Kuchma and Medvedchuk (at the time first vice-chairman of the Rada) made the decision to relaunch the Bondar case in February 2000, only three months into the Yushchenko government.

Ms. Tymoshenko has also been targeted by the authorities since 2001. In a May poll conducted by Sotsiopolis that asked which parties are the most influential in Ukraine, Ms. Tymoshenko's eponymous bloc ranked first with 31 percent. Polls for the 2004 elections give Mr. Yushchenko and Ms. Tymoshenko a combined rating of approximately 35 percent. This is far higher than the very low pre-election ratings for potential pro-presidential candidates such as Mr. Medvechuk or current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.

Mr. Tymoshenko's husband, Oleksander, was arrested in August 2000 as a way of pressuring his wife, who was then vice prime minister for energy issues, to halt her energy-sector reforms. Those reforms returned billions of dollars from the oligarchs to the state budget, where the money was used by the Yushchenko government to repay wage and pension arrears.

In June 2002 four former executives of Unified Energy Systems (EES), which Tymoshenko headed under Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko (who fled to the United States in 1999), were extradited from Turkey. The Ukrainian authorities also sought Russia's assistance in the Tymoshenko case, and a criminal case was launched against Col. Gen. Georgii Oleinik, former chief financier of the Russian Defense Ministry, on charges of accepting bribes from Ms. Tymoshenko when she headed UES.

The authorities first attempted to pin a corruption charge on Ms. Tymoshenko in mid-February 2001, when she was arrested and spent several weeks in prison. She was released in late March 2001 under a court ruling subsequently by the Supreme Court. In April 2002 a Kyiv district court ruled that four counts brought against her be dropped, along with three of the counts brought against her husband.

In March, the same district court ruled the Procurator General's Office had acted unlawfully, and on April 9 the Kyiv Municipal Appeals Court dismissed all the charges against both Ms. Tymoshenko and her husband. The Procurator General's Office has appealed these decisions and continues to ask Parliament to strip Ms. Tymoshenko of her immunity as a parliament deputy.

The driving force behind Procurator General Sviatoslav Piskun's campaign against Ms. Tymoshenko is the presidential administration. Since becoming the chief prosecutor in July 2002, Mr. Piskun has issued 100 appeals on the Ms. Tymoshenko case, and since January 2003 he has held 12 briefings. Even though the case has repeatedly been thrown out of court, the Procurator General's Office has itself - in pro-presidential media outlets - pronounced both Tymoshenkos guilty as charged.

A vote to lift Ms. Tymoshenko's immunity is unlikely to obtain the necessary 227 votes. The only time this has happened was in early 1999 in the case of Lazarenko. Even pro-presidential oligarch Oleksander Volkov, whose oil-importing business was destroyed by the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko government, opposes the removal of her immunity. Although Mr. Volkov uses legalistic arguments, he, like some of his allies, is aware that if deputies were to lift Ms. Tymoshenko's immunity, they might act the same way with regard to other prominent officials.

According to Ms. Tymoshenko the authorities have offered on many occasions to drop the case against her and her family completely if she agrees not to contest the 2004 elections in an alliance with Mr. Yushchenko. In that event, the authorities would provide her with access to the media, thereby dividing the opposition and enabling a pro-presidential candidate to break through to the second round. At present, opinion polls show that it is more likely that Yushchenko would face Communist Party Chairman Petro Symonenko in a presidential runoff.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is a resident fellow at the Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Toronto.

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