ANALYSIS: Rada approves new procurator general, as president targets the opposition (08/18/02)

ANALYSIS

Rada approves new procurator general, as president targets the opposition

by Taras Kuzio
RFE/RL Newsline

The Ukrainian Parliament on July 4 approved by 347 votes President Leonid Kuchma's candidate for procurator general, Sviatoslav Piskun. Less than a month into his new position, Mr. Piskun's first major move was to reopen the case against anti-Kuchma oppositionist Yulia Tymoshenko, accusing her of violating eight articles of the Criminal Code. This follows the arrest in Turkey on June 1 of four of her former colleagues from United Energy Systems, which she headed in the mid-1990s. The Ukrainian authorities are demanding their extradition to Ukraine.

Mr. Piskun is a former lieutenant general in the State Tax Administration (STA) and served since May as that organization's deputy head. His appointment consolidates the growing power of the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine-United (SDPU), whose leader, Viktor Medvedchuk, is now head of the presidential administration. Mr. Piskun and Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh have close ties to Mr. Medvedchuk's SDPU clan.

The Procurator General's Office had long been discredited under its previous head, Mykhailo Potebenko, who was elected to Parliament on the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) list. As Ukraine's top prosecutor, Mr. Potebenko failed to reduce the extent of oligarchic and executive corruption, and he also failed to make any progress in solving the murder of opposition journalist Heorhii Gongadze.

Mr. Piskun promised shortly after his appointment to rid Ukraine of corruption and resolve the Gongadze murder. But, as a Kuchma appointee, Mr. Piskun is unlikely to succeed in eradicating corruption, which has always been targeted in a highly selective manner. Corrupt oligarchs who have supported President Kuchma financially or politically have never been investigated.

Ms. Tymoshenko and, after he was allowed to flee Ukraine, former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko were accused of corruption charges only after they went into political opposition to Mr. Kuchma. A Kyiv court ruled on April 30 that criminal charges against Ms. Tymoshenko and her husband, Oleksander, who was arrested in August 2000, were "groundless."

In reopening the case against Ms. Tymoshenko, Mr. Piskun is continuing his predecessor's policy of accusing of "corruption" only those individuals who are in opposition to the executive. As the newspaper Zerkalo Nedeli/Dzerkalo Tyzhnia noted in its July 6-13 edition, "People from the world of big money have become the major driving force behind Piskun's success."

Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz accused President Kuchma of being directly behind Mr. Piskun's new move against Ms. Tymoshenko, which, according to Mr. Moroz, is an attempt to intimidate the opposition ahead of an announced protest action in September.

Mr. Piskun is further discrediting the Procurator General's Office, Mr. Moroz believes, by refusing to investigate the oligarchs' involvement in corruption. But opening any cases against oligarchs would be impossible now that Mr. Medvedchuk is head of the presidential administration.

As for the Gongadze case, President Kuchma said in a BBC Television documentary aired in April, "Killing the Story," that he is interested above all in resolving the murder. The most contentious issue will be whether Mr. Piskun utilizes the tapes made illicitly by security guard Mykola Melnychenko in President Kuchma's office, the FBI experts' reports on the tapes and the testimony Mr. Melnychenko has offered to give in the United States in the investigation. Mr. Piskun has created a new investigative group on Gongadze and has hinted at undertaking a fifth autopsy on the headless corpse found in November 2000.

Why is Mr. Piskun in such a hurry to deal with this case, which is not the only example of political repression or intimidation of journalists? And why is Mr. Piskun in such a hurry to establish his credentials as an "anti-corruption" fighter? Two factors may have a bearing on this urgency.

The first is the presidential elections due in October 2004. The Gongadze scandal is one of the main reasons that President Kuchma is so discredited domestically. The "Kuchmagate" affair that erupted after November 2000 led to the creation of Ukraine's largest protest movements and the defeat of the pro-Kuchma For a United Ukraine bloc in the March elections. Any candidate proposed by Mr. Kuchma to replace him as his chosen successor would stand little chance of being elected, unless Mr. Kuchma succeeds in salvaging his image.

Ukraine's political spectrum is now evenly divided into two camps. Four ideologically driven opposition groups on the left and right (the Socialists, Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine Bloc and the Communists) are pitted against an ideologically amorphous, pro-Kuchma, oligarchic center that has grown out of For a United Ukraine and the SDPU. The latter is working with Mr. Kuchma to ensure stage-managed presidential elections that would lead to a victory by the president's hand-picked successor and Mr. Kuchma's immunity, from prosecution. The former seeks to push for early elections, and most want Mr. Kuchma impeached. Each side has 218 deputies in the Verkhovna Rada, a factor that may make it difficult for Mr. Piskun to obtain the required 226 votes to remove Ms. Tymoshenko's immunity unless the Communists switch sides and back the move.

Second, Mr. Piskun was heavily involved in launching a trumped-up criminal case of "corruption" against Borys Feldman's Slovianskyi Bank and Ms. Tymoshenko (which is why her bloc voted against Mr. Piskun's appointment). The executive tried every method to prevent the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc from entering Parliament but failed. In a May poll conducted by the Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Studies, Ms. Tymoshenko was seen by Ukrainians as the most radical of the four opposition groups. The poll found that her popularity had increased from 5.7 in December 2001 to 14.2 percent today. She is ready to replace Mr. Yushchenko as opposition presidential candidate if he fails to rise to the challenge.

Interviewed in Moloda Ukraina on July 25, Ms. Tymoshenko warned that, "If we see that Yushchenko's team is not able to protect Ukraine, then we will strive to attain power independently. A potential candidate should prove his right to lay claim to this post through consistent and decisive actions and through responsibility before the people."

Mr. Piskun's new case against Ms. Tymoshenko is President Kuchma's response to Ms. Tymoshenko's prioritization of impeachment proceedings in the newly elected Verkhovna Rada, the creation of the Tymoshenko-backed Citizens Defense Committee Against Tyranny and the threat felt by President Kuchma from the unification of four opposition groups for the first time.

The opposition plans to launch mass protests calling for early presidential elections on September 16, the second anniversary of Mr. Gongadze's disappearance. During the "Kuchmagate" scandal of 2000-2001, the Communists did not back the opposition, while Mr. Yushchenko was forced to be neutral as he was then prime minister and had not yet united Ukraine's national democrats into the Our Ukraine Bloc.

Mr. Piskun's appointment to the position of procurator general is not a sign of progress in the rule of law in Ukraine, as the executive has now combined two state institutions, the State Tax Administration and the Procurator General's Office, into one office that is already being used to pursue political repression ahead of the presidential elections.

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

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