You're reading: Criminal investigations promised as Turchynov becomes acting president; Tymoshenko takes herself out of running for prime minister (UPDATE)

Oleg Mokhnytsky, a Svoboda Party member of parliament who now runs the general prosecutor’s office, promised the Verkhovna Rada on Feb. 23 that the murders of nearly 100 protesters since January will be investigated.

Mokhnytsky’s promise came as parliament convened in special session today approve many laws, including naming Verkhovna Rada speaker Oleksandr Turchinov as the nation’s acting president.

Lawmakers adjourned at mid-afternoon without picking a new prime minister and will reconvene Feb. 24 at 4 p.m., when it is expected to name a new prime minister and possibly vote to approve an association agreement with the European Union, the same deal
that ex-President Viktor Yanukovych rejected on Nov. 21, a decision that led to
his downfall.

Yulia Tymoshenko, the two-time prime minister who has been touted for the job since her Feb. 22 release from a penitentiary hospital  in Kharkiv, took herself out of the running today. Parliament voted unanimously to free her, since her abuse-of-office conviction in 2011 is widely considered to be political persecution by Yanukovych. 

“I was surprised to find out that I was offered as a candidate for prime minister of Ukraine. Nobody discussed this issue with me. Thanks for the support, but please do not consider my candidacy for the head of the government,” according to her statement on the Batkivshchyna Party website.

Besides choosing a new prime minister, parliament also wants to set elections for Kyiv mayor and city council
on May 25, the same date as the next presidential election. Yanukovych’s former ruling
Party of Regions denied Kyivans the right to elect their mayor.

Shortly after noon, parliament unanimously voted 324-0
to return the former president’s multimillion-dollar Mezhyhyria estate to the
public.

It also temporarily handed head of state powers toTurchynov,
elected on Feb. 22 as speaker of parliament, in the absence of an elected
president. He won by a unanimous vote of 285-0. 

Additionally, parliament unanimously sacked
Education Ministry Dmytro Tabachnyk and Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara. 

Parliament also unanimously cancelled all of the
draconian anti-free speech and anti-protest laws passed on Jan. 16 and further
rescinded laws passed in connection with the 2010 constitution, since the 2004
constitution that gives parliament greater powers is now in effect. 

As for punishing violent offenders, Mokhnytsky said: “The
investigation into the mass murders of people by high-ranking officials has
been already launched. The opportunities for leaving abroad are banned for
them.” 

Although he didn’t identify the suspects, presumably
Yanukovych, former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, former Prosecutor General
Viktor Pshonka, former Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko and other top
officials could be targets of such a probe. 

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the newly appointed head of
the Security Services of Ukraine, said that Yanukovych’s appointees at the
agency – known as the SBU – simply switched off their phones in many districts and
left their posts on Feb. 21. Nalyvaichenko, who held the post under
ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, said the dereliction of duty from Crimea to
Donetsk and Chernihiv left the nation without plans to protect nuclear power
plants in Ukraine. 

New Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, a member of the
Batkivshchyna Party, told parliament that people arrested for participating in
EuroMaidan demonstrations – some 64 protesters in all – will be released from
jail on Feb. 24. Avakov said police who abused their powers will be
investigated. 

Avakov also called on EuroMaidan demonstrators to stop
taking over government buildings, and urged them to help keep public order. He
said police will also prevent escalation of violence in the east, where support
for EuroMaidan has been the weakest.

One member of parliament
pleaded with Avakov not to use police as a one-sided punishment body of political
enemies and to protect documents seized at Mezhyhyria. Avakov also said he had
no information about the current whereabouts of Yanukovych, Pshonko or former
Deputy Prime Minister Klymenko. He said police will also try to track down
people reported as missing in EuroMaidan demonstrations. 

Mokhnytsky, the new prosecutor general, also said that
investigators would track capital flight from Ukraine, including assets of
mysterious multimillionaire Serhiy Kurchenko, who is believed to be close to
Oleksandr Yanukovych, the older son of the ex-president. Member of parliament
Inna Bohoslovskaya called for the seizure of Kurchenko’s assets. 

The Verkhovna Rada also canceled the language law that made bilingualism officially acceptable in regions where the population of national minorites is more than 10 percent), with 232 votes in favor.

Svoboda Party leader Oleg Tiahnybok hailed cancellation. “This law was adopted with numerous violations. It is the law that led to massive protests around the country,” Tiahnybok said. “But it also means that now the law of 1989 is in force and we need to adopt the new one that will be satisfactory for everybody.”

However, Serhiy Tigipko, the Party of Regions member who broke from Yanukovych, criticized the way that the members of parliament are voting, accusing his colleagues of railroading legislation through the Verkhovna Rada with no debate or documentation.

“The way the session is held now makes me say that (ex-Verkhovna Rada speaker Volodymyr) Rybak was very democratic,” Tigipko said. “You accused us of voting by hands but now we even don’t have any documents. I’m against the way that you first cancel and then discuss.”

Kyiv
Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected]