The scandalous former prime minister of Ukraine Pavlo Lazarenko is planning to return to the politics and run for the Verkhovna Rada. Thus, the official website of the All-Ukrainian organization Hromada headed by Lazarenko has placed an announcement that this political force will participate in the parliamentary elections led by Pavlo Lazarenko. The website informs that Hromada will hold a meeting on Saturday, August 4, in the local club of the village of Pishchanka of Novomoskovsk raion in the Dniptropetrovsk oblast. It is planned that the conventioneers will discuss the election plans of the party and approve the candidates of the party list and majority districts.
We remind our readers that in 1998 the Ukrainian Prosecutor General initiated a criminal case against Pavlo Lazarenko for the theft of the extremely large amount of the state property. According to Ukrainska Pravda, now Lazarenko is imprisoned and under investigation in the US and is under investigation in Ukraine.
“Today it would be irresponsible to claim that Pavlo Lazarenko will be registered or not. When the Central Election Commission of Ukraine receives the documents we will send requests to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Internal Affairs concerning the fulfillment of the provision of law about compulsory living in Ukraine over the past five years and citizenship and absence of convictions for deliberate crimes,” deputy head of the Central Election Commission Andrii Mahera informed the agency RBK-Ukraine.
Of course, odious Lazarenko’s application is shocking because of its impudence. We asked the political expert Dmytro VYDRIN to comment on Lazarenko’s turn-up in the election campaign.
“Probably his logic is ‘why can’t I run for parliament if my former partners who are also imprisoned can?’ I mean, I suppose that he got inspired by Yulia Tymoshenko. In general, if discuss the possibility of Lazarenko’s return into politics I would say that today in Ukraine it is possible. Any hypothetical possibility can be realized in the Ukrainian politics. Will people vote for him? As journalists and experts we just cannot ignore legal verdicts and electors’ verdicts. We have to consider electors’ choice until the election system exists in Ukraine. I repeat that in the Ukrainian politics nothing is impossible. If Hromada headed by Lazarenko enters the parliament, I am certain that this political force will find somebody to cooperate with. Look at the published party lists: some of them have not just Lazarenko’s acquaintances but his close friends he still keeps in touch with. I suppose that he will try to network with his former business partners or friends and there are 15 of them in lists of different political parties.”
