9 October 2014
Several parliamentary candidates in Ukraine’s Kirovohrad region announced on Oct. 8 that they submitted an appeal calling upon Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to rescind his appointment of Serhiy Kuzmenko as the head of the Kirovohrad state oblast administration, the Ukrayinski Novyny news agency reported. Kuzmenko served as the body’s deputy head during the administration of former President Viktor Yanukovych and therefore is subject to lustration under the law recently approved by parliament, the appeal said. Kuzmenko’s appointment drew a protest of about 500 demonstrators in mid-September.
The Petro Poroshenko Bloc political party is supporting the parliamentary candidacy of Yaroslav Moskalenko, a former Party of Regions MP who supported the effort to establish a dictatorship in Ukraine, according to video evidence produced by activists in the Kyiv region. Campaign workers in Poroshenko Bloc tents have been distributing Moskalenko’s literature, sometimes even without accompanying party materials.
Zenon Zawada: Poroshenko has disappointed many in the Ukrainian public when appointing to his government, and supporting in the parliamentary elections, politicians with ties to the administration of former President Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions. He’s calculating that this won’t hurt his party’s popularity in the Oct. 26 elections, and so far he’s correct in that assessment. However, the accumulation of such “sins” over time will begin to stir public discontent should the promise of reform and change prove to be mere public relations fodder.