The leader of the Rodina Party, Ihor Markov, recently deprived by court of his parliamentary seat has said that the Party of Regions parliamentary faction will split soon.
“What faction are we talking about? Everyone realizes that one has to jump
into the first boat departing from this Titanic, and everyone is thinking about
one thing – when they should jump,” he said at a press conference hosted by
Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.
“The atmosphere is abnormal, all of the deputies are scared. Everyone knows
that our phone conversations are taped and no one hides this fact… There is a
special unit that controls exclusively people’s deputies, and I mean not only
opposition [MPs] – trust me, they are monitoring their party mates even more
thoroughly,” the politician said.
“Since I became unwanted in the Party of Regions, they’ve tried to scare me
or buy me, and they held explanatory conversations with me,” he said.
On Sept. 12, court stripped Party of Regions member Ihor Markov of his parliamentary mandate. The lawsuit to dismiss Markov, who last October won elections in a single mandate constituency in Odesa, from the Rada was filed by member of parliament Yuriy Karmazin. In his lawsuit submitted to Higher Administrative Court, Karmazin referred to the instances of falsifying the vote results at Markov’s constituency, established by local police.
According to Markov, when he refused to fulfill the faction’s demands, they
told him: “If you don’t press the buttons, we will deprive you of your
parliamentary seat, seize your business, and put you in prison.”
Markov also said that if Party of Regions faction members attend
parliamentary sittings and vote just as the faction orders, they receive $5,000,
and those who deliver speeches in the parliament get an extra $5,000.
