Ukraine prosecutor impeding anti-corruption reforms – Transparency

The top leaders of the Ukrainian government are trying to use the Prosecutor General’s Office to establish personal control over key anti-corruption bodies to ensure that they work in their interests, reported Transparency International Ukraine on Nov. 1. Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin has the support of the government’s leaders in trying to ensure the newly created Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office is maximally dependent, the organization stated, as reported by the pravda.com.ua news site. For that aim, Shokin appointed four loyal prosecutors to the commission to form the specialized prosecutor. “All these individuals worked a long time in the highest positions in the prosecutor’s office under the Yanukovych regime,” the statement said.

The EU Representative to Ukraine, the parliamentary anti-corruption committee, the anti-corruption public and the mass media have voiced their opposition to the ability of these people to select an independent leadership of the specialized prosecutor’s office, the report said. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau can’t begin its work without the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. Without the launch of these independent anti-corruption bodies by the year end, the EU is sure to deny Ukrainians its visa-free travel regime that is being planned, the report said.

“That’s precisely why Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry publicized the demand of international partners for choosing again the members of the commission to form the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office,” the report said. “Instead, Shokin is not only not listening to the justified criticisms of state officials, but practically initiated the review of the lawfulness of the Foreign Ministry’s actions in publicizing the undermining of the visa-free regime. Shokin’s attempt to create a puppet anti-corruption body is evidence of his stubborn resistance to conduct any reforms, both within the prosecutor’s office and in the anti-corruption sphere.”

Zenon Zawada: The report avoids mentioning Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko by name, but that’s whose clearly being targeted for criticism. The president is playing a game in which he makes statements welcoming Western-oriented reforms, yet leaves the dirty work of opposing and resisting them to his associates, in this case Shokin. We see reforms to the entire Prosecutor General’s Office as the critical turning point in not only Poroshenko’s presidency, but the EuroMaidan as a whole. If Poroshenko concedes to public demand to reform the prosecutor general’s office, he saves not only his presidency but Ukraine’s Euro-aspirations. If he continues to resist, not only through Shokin but whoever might be his successor, then Ukraine’s entire European experiment might come crashing down amid Russian pressure.

The cracks have already become apparent with the Oct. 25 local elections, in which the Russian-oriented Opposition Bloc made most of the gains in the nation’s southeastern regions while the Solidarity Petro Poroshenko Bloc lost its positions. This Russian-oriented population is not the least bit impressed with the pro-Western government, which has failed to offer anything tangible to improve their day-to-day lives. Unfortunately, Poroshenko has allowed the gains of the EuroMaidan achieved by the Ukrainian people to slowly slip through his fingers. Without a dramatic change in policy, all could be lost in the next year – EU 1.8 bln in macroeconomic aid, a visa-free regime with the EU, Ukrainian sovereignty from Russia and the Poroshenko presidency.