Opposition mourning and looking for guilty

The most laughable event of this year in the Ukrainian parliament which at last has its own leadership seems to be the exclusion of ex-Public Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Mikhail Potebenko, from the Communist Party, who got to the Supreme Rada as CPU candidate. Was it reasonable to give him 20th place of the party’s list, if only one vote decided who would be at the head of the parliament – the opposition or representatives of pro-presidential forces? Though, the saddest person was Viktor Yuschenko, the Our Ukraine leader who made a statement in the name of his faction with tears in his eyes. He addressed to God and said that He sees everything, that yesterday, democracy had lost in Ukraine. He apologized for it to more than 6 million of the electorate who voted for the bloc March 31. There were hot discussions about how it had happened that the parties who lost in the election now had prevailed over four opposition factions. Yulia Timoshenko said that she personally would initiate collection of signatures for discharging the Supreme Rada leadership elected in non-constitutional way, through blackmail and bribery. Alexandr Moroz said that his faction would become a hard opposition to the parliament leadership. The conclusion is obvious: where there are two Ukrainians – there are always three leaders. Namely this sign of national mentality hindered the opposition from taking power in the parliament. Communists pulled the blanket on themselves, while fighting against the Rukh movement supporters, and stood in the way of Yulia Timoshenko and Alexandr Moroz. Our Ukraine was not fully presenting while voting for communists. While the power used this confusion in the opposition camp. Yesterday, deputies for half a day discussed why the President had not come the them with his yearly message, but had gone to the city of Chernigov to meet with Byelorussian President Alexandr Lukashenko. Moreover, a part of opposition refuses to participate in settling problems connected with creation of parliament committees. Their position is: let the winners take the whole power in the parliament and be responsible for what is happening in the country.

Alexandr Gorobets PRAVDA.Ru Kiev Ukraine

Translated by Vera Solovieva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/05/29/41929.html