Tymoshenko demands president withdraw from race amid latest allegations

Presidential contender Yulia Tymoshenko demanded that
President Poroshenko voluntarily withdraw his candidacy from the presidential
race in order for law enforcement authorities to investigate him on corruption
charges. The parliamentary majority consists of Poroshenko’s “partners” in
corruption, who have ignored her legislative attempts to launch impeachment
proceedings, she told a parliamentary committee meeting on March 11. She said her
resolution to launch a temporary investigative commission was ignored by
Poroshenko-allied MPs, while the investigation of the corruption accusations
has been transferred to an existing commission led by a Poroshenko Bloc MP.

Recall, Tymoshenko called for impeachment hearings
against Poroshenko on Feb. 25 after an investigative television broadcast
alleged one of his firms was involved in the illicit purchases of Russian military
parts that were resold to the Ukrainian army at inflated prices.

All key law enforcement authorities were aware of the
illicit purchase of Russian military parts and took bribes to not investigate
the alleged crimes, according to the latest chapter of the scandal involving
the president that continues to unfold on the bihus.info news site. Criminal
cases had been opened by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, the Military
Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine, the State Fiscal
Service and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, according to the
latest Nashi Hroshi installment broadcast on March 11. The Military
Prosecutor’s Office opened three criminal cases in one year, but none involved
the organizers of the parts scheme. Meanwhile, an agent within the
anti-corruption bureau, Yevhen Shevchenko, was allegedly involved in the
schemes, and bureau agents even worked to accommodate the organizers in
covering their tracks.

Yulia Tymoshenko has recovered her second-place
ranking in the presidential race since the eruption of the Russian military
parts scandal in late February, according to the latest poll released by the
Rating sociological service on March 11. Among decided voters, 24.7% will cast
their ballot for sketch comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, 18.3% for Tymoshenko and
16.8% for President Poroshenko. The poll was conducted between March 1 and 7
among 5,000 respondents.

Zenon Zawada: Tymoshenko
has managed to successfully rejuvenate her election campaign by milking the
Russian military parts scandal for all it has to offer. If the claims by
investigative journalists are true that they didn’t time the broadcasts for the
election campaign, they have nonetheless played a critical role for Tymoshenko,
whose momentum as opposition candidate had otherwise been stolen by Zelenskiy.
But we are seeing that new information in the ongoing Nashi Hroshi
investigative series is being gradually released to the public with careful timing.
What that accomplishes is keeping the scandal a central theme in the daily
elections news cycle, overshadowing the president’s campaign themes of having
established the canonical Orthodox Church of Ukraine and having rebuilt the
military. The effectiveness of his campaign slogan, “Army. Language. Faith,”
has been undermined to a large degree.

This poll will significantly enhance Tymoshenko’s
inevitable vote fraud claims if she is determined not to have qualified for the
second-round runoff. This weekend’s violent protests involving nationalists
indicates that Tymoshenko is capable of organizing such stunts for the news
cycle (with the help of Interior minister Avakov) in order to keep the mass
media’s focus on the president’s alleged corruption. But effective vote fraud
protests will require large numbers of peaceful citizens, which she is not
capable of gathering. At the same time, a nonviolent mass protest of combined
anti-Poroshenko forces is possible after the second-round runoff results are
announced, especially in light of the Russian military parts scandal.

It’s worth noting that the Tymoshenko campaign has
consistently relied on polls produced by the Rating sociological group, which
have consistently given her strong results. Other polls will confirm whether
she has enjoyed a bounce in support from the Russian military parts scandal.
But this poll also confirms our expectation that the scandal hasn’t hurt Poroshenko’s ratings
significantly. Instead, they seem to have boosted
Tymoshenko’s standing, which means the president’s re-election campaign will
have to reinforce for the public its key reasons to vote for Poroshenko, an
even more important task than arguing why not to vote for his leading
opponents. “Army. Language. Faith” isn’t enough anymore.