You're reading: Fresh round of protests to kick off on May 14

Brace yourselves: The organizers of last autumn’s protests against controversial tax changes are planning to kick off a new round of demonstrations on May 14.

Speaking with the Kyiv Post, Oleksandr Danylyuk said he and other pro-democracy and business rights activists plan to gather big crowds and could set up tents again on what they describe as “anger day.”

It will be an attempt, Danylyuk said, for all Ukrainians to express their dissatisfaction with the rollback on democratic and media freedoms one year under the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, as well as the worsening social-economic situation in the country.

After they amended the Constitution, they are no longer a legitimate government.

Oleksandr Danylyuk

Danylyuk is one of the leaders of the tax protests which drew support from thousands of representatives of small- and medium-sized businesses. To demonstrate their resolve, many supporters back then spent weeks sleeping overnight in tents on Kyiv’s main square.

Back then, the main slogans were against tax reforms that, in the minds of protest supporters, unfairly placed the taxpayer burden on small businesses while cutting rates for big ones.

Danylyuk said he hopes that bigger crowds will show this time around. One of the demands of protesters, according to Danylyuk, is for Yanukovych to “resign.”

“We expect all who are unsatisfied with the current regime to show up, be it entrepreneurs or people who don’t like the quality of services that they receive after seeing utility rates hiked up,” said Danylyuk, leader of the Spilna Sprava social movement.

“After they amended the Constitution, they are no longer a legitimate government. The reforms that they implement are aimed at impoverishing the population while big businesses that sponsor Yanukovych benefit,” Danylyuk said.


Kyiv Post Staff Writer Katya Grushenko can be reached at [email protected].