The Movement of New Forces of ex-Odesa Oblast Governor Mikheil Saakashvili on May 30 held an outdoor party congress in front of the Justice Ministry in Kyiv to protest the registration of a fake party named after Saakashvili.
Several hundred of Saakashvili’s supporters rallied near the ministry building.
“We will achieve a victory despite the fact that thieves, profiteers and raiders are trying to deceive the Ukrainian people and to steal our party, in the same way they stole the idea of the Maidan (Revolution),” Davit Sakvarelidze, a top member of the Movement of New Forces, said at the protest.
The rival party was previously known as the Georgian Party of Ukraine and was renamed as the Mikheil Saakashvili Bloc earlier this month – a decision that was authorized by the Justice Ministry. Saakashvili’s supporters argue that it was created by the authorities, including President Petro Poroshenko, to steal votes from Saakashvili’s Movement of New Forces.
The Presidential Administration could not immediately comment.
The party was registered by Yevheny Hofman, who was a candidate for the Power to Youth party in the 2015 local elections in Odesa. Power to Youth is headed by Valentyn Skrypets, an aide to Dmytro Holubov, a lawmaker from the Poroshenko Bloc.
Holubov is also the leader of the Internet Party of Ukraine, whose members are named after Star Wars characters. Holubov has been accused of creating the party to steal votes from opposition candidates.
He has been investigated over alleged cybercrime by the authorities of Ukraine, the United States and other countries. Holubov did not respond to a request for comment.
Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko argued that his ministry had had to register Hofman’s party because it had been required to do so by a court.
Ironically, Sakvarelidze said on May 23 that the Justice Ministry had refused to rename the Movement of New Forces to the Mikheil Saakashvili Movement of New Forces. Sakvarelidze posted a Justice Ministry document saying that the party cannot be renamed because there is no proof that Saakashvili had agreed to it.
The May 30 congress of the Movement of New Forces approved renaming the party to the Mikheil Saakashvili Movement of New Forces again.
Petrenko said that the party had not been renamed because it had not submitted necessary documents to the ministry.
Saakashvili and two of his allies, lawmakers Sergii Leshchenko and Yury Derevyanko, entered the Justice Ministry building on May 30 and had a heated discussion with Petrenko, with Saakashvili calling him “a scumbag.”
Petrenko later said he would file a libel lawsuit against Saakashvili.
