Reformer of the week: Daria Kaleniuk
Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, has been targeted by President Petro Poroshenko’s puppet law enforcers as part of a wholescale crackdown on reformers.
Kaleniuk said on Feb. 17 that the National Agency for Preventing Corruption had threatened to question and prosecute her for paying Hr 9,841 ($366) to lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko for giving lectures on fighting corruption. The agency, which is controlled by Poroshenko and the People’s Front party, has also tried to prosecute Leshchenko himself and reformist ex-customs official Yulia Marushevska.
The anti-corruption agency has so far failed to check a single official’s electronic asset declaration since the declaration system was launched last September. Its deputy chief, Ruslan Radetzky, prompted a scandal when the police said he had been caught drunk driving on Feb. 9 and refused to take an alcohol test.
Meanwhile, Kaleniuk said on Feb. 23 that the Poroshenko Bloc and the People’s Front had unsuccessfully tried to impose Nigel Brown, a little-known and controversial British citizen, as an auditor of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Brown’s candidacy emerged out of nowhere instead of Rob Storch – a deputy inspector general of the U.S. delegated by the U.S. Embassy and supported by the Verkhona Rada’s anti-corruption committee, Kaleniuk and reformist lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko said. Storch is seen as more independent and has anti-corruption credentials.
The effort to install Brown is seen as an attempt by Poroshenko to influence and obstruct the relatively independent bureau since its chief can be fired as a result of an audit. Leshchenko said Brown’s candidacy was being promoted by the president’s grey cardinals Ihor Kononenko and Oleksandr Hranovsky.
British authorities have investigated Brown on suspicion of bribing a police officer on behalf of a Russian client and buying secret police information. His company has also provided security services to Russian exiled oligarchs Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Boris Berezovsky, and received 6 million British pounds from Russian nationals’ offshore firms, according to The Times and Radio Liberty.
Anti-reformer of the week – Oleksandr Hranovsky
Despite his denials, there is evidence that President Petro Poroshenko’s top ally and lawmaker Oleksandr Hranovsky is pulling the strings of the nation’s prosecution service, judiciary and other law enforcement agencies.
Poroshenko, who already keeps the judicial system on a short leash, will likely use the ongoing judicial “reform” to assert even tighter control by replacing his predecessor Viktor Yanukovych’s loyalists with his own. At the same time, the “reform” is being sold by Poroshenko to Ukraine’s Western partners as a triumph of judicial independence and transparency.
The duumvirate of Hranovsky and his ally Ihor Kononenko stands accused of using the entire machinery of the state, including law enforcement, to line their pockets. But they are just tools of the president. When we talk about the alleged corruption schemes of Kononenko and Hranovsky, which they both deny, we actually mean Poroshenko’s alleged schemes.
Poroshenko, who has repeatedly denied corruption allegations against him, has chosen to associate with Kononenko and Hranovsky and share the stigma attached to them. He has also ousted most reformers and entrenched the power of a corrupt establishment.
Like Yanukovych, Poroshenko is using grey cardinals to make key decisions behind the scenes. One of Yanukovych’s henchmen, Andriy Portnov, was Hranovsky’s exact equivalent: he was micromanaging the law enforcement system.
