Alexandr Gorobets: Ukrainian socialists include major Melnichenko in their pre-election list

Last week, in Kiev, the second stage of the Ukrainian Socialist Party’s Ninth congress started. This is to confirm the party’s pre-election list. Although it was composed and discussed beforehand, on Friday, while finally discussing it at the political council, a precedent took place. Some party members declared that the party was not right for not including Nikolai Melnichenko, the president’s guard who is now in the USA, in the first ten of the party’s candidates. Earlier, the party’s leader, Alexandr Moroz, declared that Nikolai Melnichenko would also most likely be voted as a people’s deputy of Ukraine, though in a majority district.

The party’s political council supported this initiative, supposing that this way of balloting would not be easy for Nikolai Melnichenko because of his conflict with official authorities.

Apropos, earlier, it was supposed that he would even appear at the congress; however, this seems to be very dangerous for the author of the scandal with recorded conversations in the Ukrainian President’s office, because it is well known that Ukrainian special services have taken special measures to arrest this dangerous person. The day before the congress, Alexandr Moroz was abroad and, according to some observers, met with Nikolai Melnichenko and discussed with him his possible running as a candidate. In other words, the question of Nikolai Melnichenko’s candidacy was first on the agenda of the congress. After becoming a deputy, Nikolai Melnichenko will gain depumatic immunity and immediately return to Kiev. This could make the political situation in Ukraine more sharp. Local wits connected this with astrologer Pavel Globa’s forecast published recently in a Moscow newspaper about Leonid Kuchma’s possible resignation by the end of this year. The Globa’s forecasts are trusted in Ukraine, because, once, he forecasted Boris Yeltsin’s resignation, however being regarded as a crank, moreover, he forecasted that in 2001 a big catastrophe would take place in the United States.

Well, let us see about his Ukrainian forecasts.

Alexandr Gorobets PRAVDA.Ru Kiev Ukraine

Translated by Vera Solovieva

In the photo: Maj. Nikolay Melnichenko

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/01/14/35516.html