Sobolev says failure to cleanse the government might radicalize Ukrainians

Sobolev said at an Aug. 12 briefing
that the parliament once again failed to approve his lustration law
because deputies themselves deserve – and fear – being cleansed.

“The majority (in
parliament), the government, those people who have power in Ukraine,
they don’t want the cleansing of power. And 188 votes to put the
draft law (on lustration) on the agenda, is testimony to that,”
Sobolev said.

The parliament failed to get the
required majority of 226 votes to even start debating Sobolev’s
lustration law, which was created in conjunction with several civic
groups. One of them, Chesno, said that without this law Ukraine
cannot expect its government and parliament to be transparent.

“Deputies didn’t
even try to pass Sobolev’s law. So we cannot talk about
transparency of the parliament at all”, said Yevhen Radchenko, an
activist of Chesno watchdog.

This draft suggests,
that, among other things, those senior officials who continued to
work for ex-President Viktor Yanukovych during EuroMaidan, need to be
fired. Those officials who cannot explain the source of their income
also need to be removed from office.

Former KGB members
will also have to be cleansed out, as well as former Communist Party
officials of the Soviet era.

This law ensures free,
open, 24-hour access to the Government Lustration Register on the
official web site which would contain biographies, financial and
other information of existing and potential government officials.

Sobolev warned that failure to approve
this type of law might result in radicalization of Ukrainians, who
fought for new quality of governance during the EuroMaidan
revolution, not merely a change of faces.

“Protesters who
rallied by Verkhovna Rada really wanted to burn this place, but I
told them that we cannot take such measures we are fighting the
Russian forces in the east of Ukraine”, said Sobolev.

Chesno also said that the parliament’s
initiative to reduce the pre-term election campaign to 45 days from
the current 60 days is against both the constitution and simple
logic. The printing of the ballots takes 38 days, according Yevhen
Radchenko.

Kyiv Post staff
writer Denys Krasnikov can be reached at denys.krasnikov@gmail.com