Appointment of elect anti-corruption prosecutor postponed again

The selection commission again failed to vote for the
appointment of the head of Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office
(SAPO) on Feb. 3. The commission’s meeting scheduled for that day did not take
place due to the absence of a quorum. The commission members agreed to try
gathering again sometime in the next week.

According to Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the NGO
Anti-Corruption Action Center, two pro-president commission members refused to
attend the Feb. 3 meeting and had stated they won’t attend before an appellate
court decides on the lower court’s decision questioning the commission’s right
to select  the SAPO head. This ruling was made by the scandalous Kyiv
District Administrative Court on Dec. 20, but it cannot come into effect unless
an appellate court confirms it.

This was the third attempt by the commission to
appoint the SAPO head, after the previous attempts made on Dec. 21 and Dec. 24.
At the first meeting, the commission calculated that out of
two candidates for SAPO head, Oleksandr Klymenko gained 246 points and Andriy
Syniuk gained 229 points. However, the commission members who are close to the
presidential office (which does not like the idea of appointing Klymenko, who
is independent politically) simply refused to make a final vote and approve the
calculation’s results. In late December, the U.K. and U.S. embassies to Ukraine
openly called on the commission
to approve the results.

Alexander Paraschiy: As we
stated before, there is clarity that Zelensky’s entourage does not want the
appointment of Klymenko, who as a detective of the National Anticorruption
Bureau demonstrated his independence from the government. Such independence, if
realized at the high position of SAPO head, will threaten the entire balance of
power in Ukraine (at least, president Zelensky’s entourage seems to believe
so). Therefore, the task of the government is to postpone the selection of
Klymenko for as long as possible. And the longer the delay is, the higher
probability is that some good reason or circumstance will appear that won’t
allow Klymenko to be appointed. The idea to wait for the ruling of an appellate
court is brilliant: the ruling could be awaited for ages.

This clearly does not add any positives to
Ukraine’s investment case. Luckily for Ukraine, this does not affect Ukraine’s
cooperation with Western partners  – for as long as the risk of Russian
aggression against Ukraine is a bigger headache for the Western partners than
Ukraine’s corruption.