About 200 members of the AutoMaidan car protest group on Oct. 31 went to the president’s private mansion for the first time since the 2013-14 EuroMaidan Revolution, demanding the dismissal of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
See the Kyiv Post photo gallery: “Poroshokin” rally protests against Poroshenko, Shokin
AutoMaidan activists accuse Shokin of sabotaging all high-profile investigations, including corruption cases against incumbent and former top officials and the investigation into the murder of over 100 protesters during the EuroMaidan Revolution.
Shokin also faces accusations of derailing his deputy Davit Sakvarelidze’s reform, which envisages hiring new prosecutors in a competitive and transparent process. He has also reportedly failed to declare luxury property, according to recent journalistic investigations.
The problems have gone out of hand so much that more than 100 of Ukraine’s 450 members of parliament have called for Shokin’s dismissal.
Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and Jan Tombinski, the European Union’s ambassador, have publicly criticized the performance of the Prosecutor General’s Office. Shokin has clashed with the EU and Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry over his stance on the appointment of the chief anti-corruption prosecutor, jeopardizing a visa-free regime with the EU.
AutoMaidan activists, who visited Poroshenko’s house in the Koncha-Zaspa high-end neighborhood in the south of Kyiv, urged the president to dismiss Shokin.
Protesters line up next to the entrance to Poroshenko’s mansion in Koncha-Zaspa.
The presidential residence had a heavy police presence.
A few hundred meters from the president’s private mansion, the motorcade faced a counter-demonstration of about 25 Poroshenko supporters. Some of them masked, they stood across a pedestrian crossing, blocking the narrow suburban road.
The counter-demonstrators held posters warning against a “third Maidan” revolution and criticizing Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. The AutoMaidan activists referred to them as “titushki” – a term previously used for pro-government thugs financed by disgraced ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s regime.
In the following stand-off, tension rose as AutoMaidan activists attempted to deprive one of the Poroshenko supporters of a Ukrainian national flag he used to cover his face. Referring to the defenders of the nation in Russia’s war against Ukraine, Yegor Sobolev, a lawmaker from the Samopomich party, told the man that “brave men have paid with their lives for that flag, so don’t use it to wipe your nose.” The man sat down claiming that he had been hit but the Kyiv Post didn’t observe any acts of violence.
Semen Semenchenko, another Verkhovna Rada member from Samopomich, denounced the pro-Poroshenko demonstrators and their request for “stability.”
“Their stability is one of the corrupt criminals. We need the rule of law instead,” he said.
One of the Poroshenko supporters with a dog lied down on the road, trying to prevent the AutoMaidan cars from moving further.
The road was also blocked by a bus with camouflaged men whose commander said he was from the Mirotvorets volunteer battalion. The AutoMaidan activists bickered with the commander, and he agreed to unblock the road.
The protesters displayed an effigy with a double face of Poroshenko and Shokin, dubbed “Poroshokin.” They also held posters saying “impeachment is easy,” “Poroshenko covers the corrupt system, the corrupt system covers Poroshenko,” “Fire Shokin or Ukrainians will fire you,” and “Poroshokin is killing the visa-free regime.”
The activists also called Poroshenko’s office to persuade him or his people to come out and talk to them but the opposite side failed to appear.
Sobolev said at the rally he had a feeling that “history is repeating itself,” drawing parallels with AutoMaidan trips to Yanukovych’s residence during the EuroMaidan Revolution and citing the use of “titushki” by both presidents.
“The prosecutor general, who has failed in absolutely all tasks, must be immediately sacked,” he said. “We have a third prosecutor general after EuroMaidan, and all of them are doing the same thing: cover up those who terrorized EuroMaidan and those who are robbing the country now.”
Sobolev said that 119 signatures in favor of Shokin’s dismissal had been collected so far. Serhiy Leshchenko, a lawmaker from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, has recently submitted his signature, and Mustafa Nayyem from the same bloc has promised to do the same, Sobolev added.
To put the issue on parliament’s agenda, 150 signatures are necessary.
He said at the president had a chance to fire Shokin while protests are still peaceful.
“Everyone knows what will happen later (if Poroshenko doesn’t make concessions). At best tires, at worst bullets,” Sobolev said, referring to the burning barricades of the EuroMaidan Revolution.
Sobolev reminded Poroshenko of violent clashes between police and demonstrators in Kyiv during the revolution.
“If peaceful AutoMaidan rallies are ignored, I advise Petro Alekseyevich (Poroshenko) to watch videos of events on Hrushevsky Street (in January 2014) and Maidan Nezalezhnosti in late February (2014),” he said. “Some EuroMaidan protesters have military experience. That’s a fire that you shouldn’t play with.”
He also said that, if Shokin is fired, civil society must make sure that he is replaced by an independent and competent person.
But Ihor Lutsenko, a lawmaker from the Batkyvshchyna party, said at the protest that Shokin’s replacement “is likely to obey the president in 90 percent of the cases, only rarely saying no.”
With little hope of more justice with another prosecutor general, Lutsenko said that the aim of the rally was to increase awareness in society that more radical change was needed.
“Today’s action is educational,” he said.
Lutsenko has proposed that the prosecutor general should be selected in a competitive hiring process, but the Verkhovna Rada kept the law giving the president and the pro-presidential majority in parliament the final say on the matter earlier this year.
Oleksandr Kravtsov, a protester who was one of the initiators of the AutoMaidan group in November 2013 and led the 2.5 kilometer motorcade on Oct. 31, told the Kyiv Post he was disappointed that the officials who had destroyed his car and imprisoned him during the EuroMaidan Revolution were still employed at the Prosecutor General’s Office.
“Just get rid of them,” he said.
Kravtsov, who has founded an electric car import company with fellow activists, said it was symbolic that his zero emission car was leading the motorcade.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected]. Kyiv Post staff writer Johannes Wamberg Andersen can be reached at [email protected].
