President accuses Moroz of manipulations

President Viktor Yushchenko has accused the VRU speaker Olexander Moroz of political manipulations and apparent reluctance to fulfill the Joint statement of May 27, President's press office informed.

“The question about the authorities of the Verkhovna Rada of the fifth convocation has been closed. I will not accept all these manipulations, particularly by the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday, describing recent developments in parliament as “nothing but speaker Moroz’s manipulation of the current political situation.” “Today Ukraine has a chance to come out of its crisis on the basis of political agreements. There are forces that torpedo this variant, one of them is parliament speaker Olexander Moroz.”

Yushchenko said Moroz’s actions were dictated by his and his party’s fears of never being elected to parliament again after “a series of betrayals and incorrect political behavior.” “It is obvious that their priority number one is to fight for each day of the illegitimate Verkhovna Rada to at least somehow use the tribune and video cameras to seek amnesty from the people.”

The President said the key aspects of the May 27 Joint Statement had been fulfilled. Ukraine’s leaders agreed to hold an early parliamentary election on September 30 and, on Moroz’s persistent requests, do it on the basis of a presidential decree based on paragraph 2 of article 82 of the constitution, he added. Yushchenko reminded reporters he had suspended his dissolution in order to enable the country’s opposition lawmakers to return to the Verkhovna Rada hall for adopting several important laws to legalize the snap election and facilitate the Ukraine’s WTO accession.

Yushchenko said the May deal “provided basis” for his party, Our Ukraine, and Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc to hold conventions to submit their resignations. “So the opposition fulfilled its obligations,” he said, praising their decision. The president said the staff department of the Verkhovna Rada had received their resignation papers and that parliamenthad fewer than 300 lawmakers and was thus illegitimate.

“I am convinced that honest politicians – those who keep their promises – could have stopped at that point and bring calm and stability into the country,” he said. However, on May 30 the Verkhovna Rada passed a resolution to make the speaker personally read out a handwritten resignation requestfrom each of the opposition lawmakers that had given up their seats.

“I am giving you all these examples so that you could immerse yourselves in all these intrigues and see all these backstage exploits performed by the sides that, I think, are acting unconstructively in settling Ukraine’s political crisis.”

Yushchenko said Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) and Vyacheslav Kyrylenko (Our Ukraine) had met with speaker Moroz today. “Their only goal was to convince the Verkhovna Rada speaker to eventually stop chairing parliamentary sessions,” he said.“I am convinced the Ukrainian nation deserves [to see] such politicians as Oleksandr Moroz keep their promises and fulfill all the formally and publicly signed political agreements.”

The president reiterated his opinion that “the September 30 elections are, no doubt, inevitable.”