Batkivschyna: Father and son Tabalov did not take oath, so they are not deputies

The faction of the Batkivschyna United Opposition in parliament has said that Oleksandr Tabalov and his son, Andriy Tabalov, did not take the MP oath, so they are not MPs. 

"Formally and legally – [they are] not [MPs]," the leader of the faction, Arseniy Yatseniuk, said on Wednesday, noting that Tabalovs were not present in the session hall when the most senior MP read out the text of the oath. Consequently, they did not take the oath.

So they did not become MPs and they did not assume the powers of MPs, he added.

"I assume all of the blame for the fact that these people were elected to parliament, and for any other who is on the list," Yatseniuk told reporters.

"My fault is that I believed these people who swear on the Bible, swear on their family's name and who lie and betray," he said.

The chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of the sixth convocation, Volodymyr Lytvyn, in turn, said that in this situation Tabalovs were still MPs.

"If they do not take the oath, they will not assume the powers of people's deputies," Lytvyn told journalists.

At the same time, he noted that the parliament's rules of procedure do not determine the period in which MPs have to take the oath.

"It's already impossible to deprive them of their powers. They can only individually submit statements on the termination of their parliamentary powers," Lytvyn said.

However, the leader of the Svoboda All-Ukrainian Union, MP Oleh Tiahnybok, promised that the Tobalovs would not be let into the session hall in future.

As reported, the press service of the Batkivschyna United Opposition said early on Wednesday that the father and son Tabalov had not joined the Batkivschyna faction, thus violating the oath of office of candidate for MP, which they signed on August 5, 2012.

In this connection, Batkivschyna demanded that Oleksandr Tabalov and his son, Andriy, who were elected to the Verkhovna Rada from Batkivschyna, drop their mandates.

Andriy Tabalov, born in 1983, was elected in single-seat constituency No. 99, receiving 32.8% of the vote and beating his Regions Party opponent by a margin of 2.5%. His father, born in 1957, was elected to parliament on the Batkivschyna list as No. 49. According to MP Oleksandr Yavorivsky, the Tabalovs were recommended by Yatseniuk's Front for Change Party.