The restive Youth: Ukraine’s Hope led by Vadym Hladchuk yet again picketed the Kyiv State Administration on December 18. According to the organizers of the action, they resumed picketing the mayor’s office because of city fathers’ utter disregard for their previous demands. In part, the demands, criticism, and proposals Kyivans put in writing on the so- called Wailing Wall (sheets on which passersby could jot down a message to the mayor) fell on deaf ears. The walls were put up on approaches to the administration. This time dozens of pickets were advancing such slogans as Get the city budget under control, Down with censorship in Kyiv, etc. However, this time again Oleksandr Omelchenko could hardly heed the demands of the youth rally as it was timed to coincide with the presentation of Yednist (Unity), a newly-created Verkhovna Rada fraction. The process of the mayor’s preparation for the coming parliamentary elections, one of its stages being creating his own fraction in the parliament, is a matter of high priority, leaving no time for some wailing walls or other such trifles.
Meanwhile older comrades from the Yabluko parliamentary faction went as far as its leader Mykhailo Brodsky who demanded from the rostrum that Oleksandr Omelchenko be fired. Mr. Brodsky said that his group had sent a note to the president stressing Mayor Omelchenko’s violation of the Constitution by double-dipping as Kyiv City Administration head. Under Article 12 of the Constitution of Ukraine, On Local State Administrations, heads of State Administrations may not double as people’s deputies, have any other representative powers, or combine their job with any other activity, inclusive of social work. Thus Yabluko believes that Omelchenko is violating the law in force by occupying the position of the Kyiv City Administration head.
