The Verkhovna Rada on Feb. 10 appointed Viktor Shokin as prosecutor general with 318 votes in 450-seat parliament.
Most of the Bloc of President Petro
Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front and
former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkyvshchyna supported
the appointment of 62-year-old prosecutor. He was also
supported by three successors of former President Viktor Yanukovych’s
Party of Regions – the Opposition Bloc, People’s Will and
Economic Development factions.
Most of Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy’s
Samopomich party and Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party voted against
Shokin’s appointment.
Shokin, who had previously been a
deputy prosecutor general, was appointed acting prosecutor general on
Feb. 8 after his predecessor Vitaly Yarema resigned.
President Petro
Poroshenko, who introduced Shokin in
parliament, said that Yarema failed to meet the
nation’s expectations and investigate top crimes in the past
year, including murders of EuroMaidan protesters and the corruption
of Yanukovych’s cronies. “People’s emotions about Yarema are
understandable,” Poroshenko said. “The open wound of Maidan gives
pain to all.”
He also said that the new prosecutor’s
task includes “punishment of crimes on Maidan – this is the task
for all law enforcement agencies. Their punishment has to be
unavoidable.”
Yegor Sobolev, a lawmaker from
Samopomich, asked Shokin in the session hall why he had failed to
keep his promise and punish Serhiy Kivalov for fixing the 2004
presidential election, which led to the Orange Revolution. Shokin
responded by saying he lacked evidence to sentence Kivalov, who
headed the Central Election Commission at the time.
Meanwhile, Lyashko said that his
faction expected to see a younger and more energetic candidate to
head prosecution.
