Quotable notes (09/18/05)

Quotable notes

"Having organized an information blockade around the president, having taken him to a virtual, unreal world, cynically distorting reality and true accents of life, [these high-ranking officials] are step-by-step carrying out their plan to maximally use government posts in order to increase their own capital, to privatize and get into their hands everything they can. ... Their goal is a monopoly on key government functions."

- Oleksander Zinchenko, chairman of the Presidential Secretariat (a position also known as the president's chief of staff), speaking at his September 5 press conference at which he announced his resignation. Mr. Zinchenko identified National Defense and Security Council Secretary Petro Poroshenko and senior presidential adviser Oleksander Tretiakov as corrupt officials.

"I would like to emphasize that Petro Poroshenko is an absolutely self-sufficient person and that he has never clung onto a [government] post and never will," Mr. Poroshenko said in his own defense. "He has not become one kopiyka or one share richer since he became a government official, and he will leave office in the same way. I emphasize now that the Security and Defense Council secretary has no influence either on the Procurator General's Office, or on the Security Service of Ukraine or on the Internal Affairs Ministry."

- Petro Poroshenko speaking after Oleksander Zinchenko at the September 5 press conference convened by the outgoing chairman of the Presidential Secretariat.

"We will head into the elections with Viktor Yushchenko on parallel paths. This doesn't mean there's a war. This means there will be two separate parties with absolutely different compositions. I will not head into the elections with people who discredit Ukraine. I'm not referring to the president, but rather his circle."

- Yulia Tymoshenko, speaking on September 9, the day after she and her Cabinet of Ministers were sacked by President Viktor Yushchenko.

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