Ukrainiana

Prosecution Chases Lutsenko, Lutsenko Chases Chernovetsky

Following Lutsenko’s aggression against “places that men usually take pride in,” Chernovetsky called in sick and pressed charges against the aggressor.

The conflict shows signs of escalation. The armies have regrouped, and hostilities have shifted to two command centers: the Office of the Prosecutor-General, penetrated by the Party of Regions, and the Ministry of the Interior, run by Lutsenko.

Chernovetsky, backed by the Party of Regions, is pushing the Prosecutor-General to supply the Verkhovna Rada with enough ammo to fire Lutsenko and then prosecute him. The bottleneck is that firing Lutsenko cannot be done without mobilizing a few Orange votes.

But, as Christina Aguilera well knows, if you rub the bottle the right way, the operation might succeed. And if successful, the genie would in turn balkanize the Orange Coalition, bringing a cornucopia of trophies — if not the smell of shyrka — to the Party of Regions.

Still, it’s domino theory, not a surefire scenario. Besides, Lutsenko, inspired by the prospect of being prosecuted, is raising the roof on Chernovetsky, an act long overdue considering how Chernovetsky has raised the roof on Kyiv.

Aside from digging into Chernoco’s land activities, the Minister of the Interior is busy reopening some pretty ugly X-files — two road accidents involving Chernovetsky’s car fleet. On April 15, 2003, a Mercedes-Benz S600 belonging to Chernovetsky’s Pravex hit an 11-year old boy to death. On November 2 that same year, another car of his, a Mercedes-Benz G500, took the life a 20-year old man.

The two cases were soon closed for lack of evidence. It now appears they were under-investigated. Which begs the question, “What took you so long?”

Well, it’s a long story. In 2003, Leonid Chernovetsky was a member of parliament and a loyal member of the Nasha Ukrayina faction, a precursor to NUNS. During Lutsenko’s first term as Minister of the Interior (2005/06), Chernovetsky hung out with the Orange crowd. Once elected Mayor of Kyiv in the March 2006 election, Chernovetsky felt the power of gravity — land gravity, that is — and gradually changed colors. The Age of Innocence was gone.

A hard look at this piece of history makes today’s mortal combat look more like a boyish tit-for-tat fight.

It looks like the two camps have gone from “forgive and forget” to “burning bridges.” In other words, “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours; you kick my ass, and I’ll kick yours.”

Since neither Chernovetsky nor Lutsenko has taken a polygraph test on the subject, the public bases its conclusions on as little, or as much, knowledge and critical thinking as it has.

Still, even in the absence of intimate knowledge of Chernovetsky-Lutsenko interactions, Kyivites favor Lutsenko’s role slightly more than they do Chernovetsky’s. That's what the recent poll published in Dzerkalo Tyzhnya says.

Asked about who should take the blame for the incident, Kyivites responded as follows:

Yuriy Lutsenko: 12.2%
Leonid Chernovetsky: 22.5%
Both: 42.2%
Neither: 2.1%
Don’t know: 21.1%

The next time Kyivites make their choice, they’d better make a better choice. I hope that choice comes soon. And if Lutsenko corrects his mistakes, I’d rather vote for him than for someone who doesn’t. At any rate, I will never ever vote for someone who uses vermicelli voters to torpedo the rest of us to the bottom of the food chains.


Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/1/25/70427.htm http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/1/25/70440.htm http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/1/25/70443.htm http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/1/25/70444.htm http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/1/26/70453.htm http://tabloid.pravda.com.ua/focus/479a09510ef9f/
http://www.zn.ua/1000/1550/61843/
http://www.zn.ua/img/st_img/2008/682/682-tab_mordoboy_rus.gif