Latest corruption allegations surface against leading presidential candidates

More allegations
surfaced throughout Feb. 28 implicating all three leading presidential
candidates of having engaged in corruption. The newest allegations against
President Poroshenko involve the Bogdan Motors company, in which he was
previously a major stakeholder, with that role currently being filled by Oleh
Hladkovskiy, the deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council
who has taken a temporarily leave of absence pending investigations of a corruption scandal that erupted
this week.
The company announced on Feb. 28 that its Bars-8 armored personnel carrier
passed the necessary state inspections and will be supplied to Ukraine’s Armed
Forces. The president’s critics have pointed out that these sales will
lead to more profits for
Hladkovskiy from military contracts secured through his high-ranking defense
post and status in the president’s inner circle, which has financial incentives
to extend the war in Donbas.

The same news
program that earlier this week alleged Hladkovskiy’s corruption, Nashi Hroshi
on the bihus.info YouTube channel, broadcast a Feb. 28 video report alleging
that the Yulia Tymoshenko election staff has been laundering money to the
campaign as donations of hundreds of thousands – and even millions – of
hryvnias from low-income citizens. Some could not recall they had made such
large donations when confronted by reporters, while others claimed they had truly
made such donations, despite having low income professions such as manicurists
or no consistent employment at all. Shell companies were also created to make
fake donations, the news report said. The scheme was likely organized to avoid
financial inspections, as well as avoid revealing the true sources of funding,
the news report said. Tymoshenko said the donations could have been a
provocation from intelligence services controlled by her elections rival, the
president. She also said that the donations could be real but donors are afraid
to confirm their wealth.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy,
the sketch comedian who is leading in the polls, has not been immune from
corruption allegations. Poroshenko Bloc MP Volodymyr Ariev published on his
Facebook page on Feb. 28 alleged evidence that Zelenskiy’s entertainment
company received USD 41 mln from Privatbank’s then-majority stakeholder Igor
Kolomoisky as part of scores of loans that were allegedly used to launder money
from the bank’s depositors. The alleged evidence included charts with contract
numbers and money transfer dates. “Everything occurred under the oligarch’s
standard scheme of theft that was investigated by Kroll after Kolomoisky and
his company extracted USD 6 bln from depositors and refinancing money that came
from the National Bank’s reserves when the bank began collapsing from the
weight of the pyramid created by its owners,” alleged Ariev, who had been an
investigative journalist before joining parliament.

Zenon Zawada: To
their credit, Ukraine’s journalists have been actively exposing the dirty
laundry of leading candidates during the elections. The corruption allegations
are being eagerly exploited by the campaigns, who are in full attack mode with
only one month left until Election Day. Accusations against Poroshenko of
profiting off the war in Donbas are the most serious and have the potential to
do the most damage. Meanwhile, Zelenskiy is the most immune to the mudslinging
since he’s playing the role of the outsider. Ideally, the candidates would focus
their campaigns on presenting their vision and proposals for the nation’s
development. But such attacks are more effective in that they tend to trigger
the emotions of voters and prompt them to act on them on Election Day.