This week’s development removed doubts that the president and his allies actually wanted to sign the association agreement in Vilnius, Lithuania this November, thus integrating more closely with the EU. Their actions say they do not.
“Get lost, EU” is the implicit message behind the court decision to strip Serhiy Vlasenko of his seat in parliament. Vlasenko is a member of the opposition party led by imprisoned ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Even more, he’s been Tymoshenko’s aggressive and steadfast legal advocate in the bewildering array of court cases lined up against her.
All of this comes less than two weeks after EU leaders in Brussels scolded Yanukovych to clean up his act – end political persecutions, make courts independent and strengthen laws ensuring democratic elections.
Of course, the administration can deny having anything to do with Vlasenko’s fate – it’s simply the judicial system doing its job. The legal pretext for stripping him of his seat is also pro forma: He violated the law by combining parliamentary duties with business interests, in this case as a lawyer.
Leaving aside the fact that many – if not most – members of parliament have outside business interests, the law is misguided. It should be up to the voters who elected their representatives to decide whether their side job – or 10 side jobs, if they can handle them – is affecting their performance. That’s what elections should be about.
Given the past three years of stepped-up selective justice and politically motivated criminal prosecutions, Vlasenko, the West and Ukraine’s opposition are rightly concerned that he will face trumped-up criminal charges soon related to his messy divorce. Even if he doesn’t, the clear message has been sent by this administration: Anyone who defends Tymoshenko or crosses us will be punished.
Yanukovych’s self-defeating governance – and willingness to put his nation’s ties with the West at risk – is all the more baffling coming on the heels of his most recent foray to Russia, where all signs indicate that he on March 4 held another unproductive meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
It is very hard to see what is guiding this administration beyond hatred and fear of Tymoshenko. Ukraine’s leaders are not moving the nation in a positive direction or helping the country’s shaky standing in the family of democratic nations.
