You're reading: Tymoshenko new target for dirty election campaign

As political ads fill billboards and media all over the country ahead of the Oct. 28 parliament elections, Yulia Tymoshenko is once again becoming a target for some of the most controversial tricks, despite the fact that she’s in prison and has no chance to run.

On June 23 and 24 at least half a dozen local TV channels in different
parts of Ukraine broadcast the documentary about the jailed opposition leader.
Called The Princess and the Pea, is refers to the popular fairytale. But the
plot is far from it.

The hour-long documentary accuses the ex-prime minister of faking her
backache, among other things. She is being treated in a Kharkiv hospital for
spinal hernia, which is painful and often makes walking difficult.

In the film, her prison doctor speaks on the record, saying that her
condition is “not unusual for a person over 40” and argues that “10 per cent of
prisoners in jail suffer from it too.”

Moreover, Tymoshenko is also criticized for being “unwilling to lead the
same life as other female prisoners” like wearing a robe, eating prison food,
visiting the prison gym and engaging in other daily activities.

“Being used to the life of luxury, she is very far from real people,”
says the commentator, pointing to the fact that Tymoshenko fakes her condition
to not only “fool the public,” but to “lead a privileged life in prison.”

Tymoshenko is even accused of having never visited the prison chapel.
Tymoshenko is not given a chance to speak for herself in the movie, though,
even through her team members.

The opposition and media experts say
the film is “sheer propaganda.”

“This is done in the very best
traditions of moron TV. It’s
done to discredit the leader of the opposition. It is an awful manipulation
that discredits journalism as a profession and the whole country,” says Yuriy
Stets, an opposition parliament member who now heads its freedom of speech
committee.

Nevertheless, the film was broadcast at government-owned regional TV
stations in Vinnytsya, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk and several other regions.

Stets
says TV stations should be ashamed “even
though rejecting [this film] might have caused [managers] their jobs.”

The film’s author is Oleg Kalashnikov, who is an active anti-Tymoshenko
campaigner, and a former Party of Regions member who was expelled from the
party in 2007 for using violence against journalists. He and TV channels that
aired the film refuse to reveal whether it was paid-for broadcasting, akin to
advertisement, or provided as free content. Kalashnikov nonetheless stressed
that the film was educational and enlightening.

“People deserve to know the truth about the illegal activities of
Tymoshenko, and we are trying to bring them the truth,” he told the Kyiv Post
in a telephone interview.

Kalashnikov has been at the helm of the anti-Tymoshenko campaign since
May 2011, when the Kyiv Pechersk District Court started hearing her case. It
was his voice that blasted out of speakers set up in an anti-Tymoshenko camp on
Khreshchatyk. He listed her alleged misdeeds in a direct and uncompromising
manner.

Kalashnikov declined to reveal the budget of the film, but claimed the
money came from the All-military Union of Ukraine, a nongovernmental
organization that he heads.

The film is Kalashnikov’s second attempt to “educate the public” about
Tymoshenko through documentaries. His first movie, Prosto Yulya ran on local
channels on Jan. 4.

In that film Tymoshenko was accused, among other things, of engaging in
corrupt activities with Pavlo Lazarenko, the former prime minister who is now
serving a term in US jail for money laundering, embezzlement and fraud.

Director of Mass Information Institute Viktoriya
Sumar says this is “classic propaganda” designed to “convince people that
Tymoshenko deserved jail.”

Stets promised to raise the issue at
the next meeting of the parliamentary committee on freedom of speech, which is
scheduled for July 4th. However, such hearings have very little
impact on media programming.

The committee has previously debated
the Prosto Yulya documentary, but the broadcasters simply brushed all
accusations off.

Vasyl Yurychko, head of the state
owned UTR – Ukrainian TV and radio service then said that he does not
understand why the film is deemed by the committee as manipulative and claimed
“the film did not break any laws”.

Heads of the local state owned TV
stations that ran the film declined to comment on, saying only that
broadcasting the documentary is “a part of cooperation with UTR which obtained
the rights to broadcast”.

Tymoshenko’s spokesperson Maryna
Soroka says the “volume of dirt” against the opposition will only increase as
the election nears.

Kalashnikov agrees. He says his unnamed
investigative journalists are seeking new facts and continue their
investigation.

Kyiv Post staff writer
Svitlana Tuchynska can be reached at
[email protected]