The Guardian (U.K.): Ukraine Leader Accused of Poll Blackmail
02/13/2001 | Broker
Ukraine leader accused of poll blackmail
Ian Traynor in Moscow
Tuesday February 13, 2001
C
President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine came under increased pressure to step down yesterday after covertly taped conversations seemed to show him rigging the 1999 election that won him a second term.
With Ukraine facing its biggest political crisis since independence in 1991, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, flew to meet Mr Kuchma.
But their signing of trade and energy agreements in the south-eastern Ukrainian town of Dnipropetrovsk kept them away from the capital Kiev, where thousands of protesters maintained a vigil, describing Mr Kuchma as "kaput" and demanding that Ukraine be made a "Kuchma-free zone'.
Yesterday's disclosures are from tapes by a former Kuchma bodyguard alleged also to show the Ukrainian leader's complicity in the murder last September of an opposition journalist, Georgiy Gongadze. It was his internet newspaper that released the new extracts yesterday.
Mr Putin described the accusations about the killing as "a sign of a normal democratic society". The crisis has already resulted in the sacking of a Ukrainian deputy prime minister, the head of the secret police, and the head of presidential security, and the suspension of the prosecutor-general. But there is no sign of Mr Kuchma resigning.
Yesterday's disclosures show the president apparently ordering the blackmail of officials. In language laced with expletives, Mr Kuchma, tells Nikolai Azarov, head of the tax authority: "You have to get all your ... subordinates together at district and regional level and warn them that if they lose the election they will be out of a job ... You have to tell them that they either get the votes or go to jail."
"It's okay, everything will be fine," Mr Azarov apparently responds.
The opposition socialist leader, Alexander Moroz, who was the first to disclose the tapes, yesterday repeated his calls for the president to stand down. Mr Kuchma "usurped power and created a dictatorship in the country", he said.
Mr Moroz is a leader of the anti-Kuchma "national salvation forum" mobilising people across the country to step up civil disobedience. "We can prove that he is not legally elected by 56% of Ukrainians, as previously stated," Mr Moroz is quoted as telling the Moscow newspaper Izvestiya.
"Thanks to the tapes we know how this victory was obtained - there was elementary intimidation and coercion of people using the police and the tax service."
Mr Moroz said the president could avoid prosecution by confirming the authenticity of the tapes and resigning voluntarily. Alternatively, "mass political actions" would be organised to topple him.
Foreign experts say that the tapes are authentic.
Ian Traynor in Moscow
Tuesday February 13, 2001
C
President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine came under increased pressure to step down yesterday after covertly taped conversations seemed to show him rigging the 1999 election that won him a second term.
With Ukraine facing its biggest political crisis since independence in 1991, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, flew to meet Mr Kuchma.
But their signing of trade and energy agreements in the south-eastern Ukrainian town of Dnipropetrovsk kept them away from the capital Kiev, where thousands of protesters maintained a vigil, describing Mr Kuchma as "kaput" and demanding that Ukraine be made a "Kuchma-free zone'.
Yesterday's disclosures are from tapes by a former Kuchma bodyguard alleged also to show the Ukrainian leader's complicity in the murder last September of an opposition journalist, Georgiy Gongadze. It was his internet newspaper that released the new extracts yesterday.
Mr Putin described the accusations about the killing as "a sign of a normal democratic society". The crisis has already resulted in the sacking of a Ukrainian deputy prime minister, the head of the secret police, and the head of presidential security, and the suspension of the prosecutor-general. But there is no sign of Mr Kuchma resigning.
Yesterday's disclosures show the president apparently ordering the blackmail of officials. In language laced with expletives, Mr Kuchma, tells Nikolai Azarov, head of the tax authority: "You have to get all your ... subordinates together at district and regional level and warn them that if they lose the election they will be out of a job ... You have to tell them that they either get the votes or go to jail."
"It's okay, everything will be fine," Mr Azarov apparently responds.
The opposition socialist leader, Alexander Moroz, who was the first to disclose the tapes, yesterday repeated his calls for the president to stand down. Mr Kuchma "usurped power and created a dictatorship in the country", he said.
Mr Moroz is a leader of the anti-Kuchma "national salvation forum" mobilising people across the country to step up civil disobedience. "We can prove that he is not legally elected by 56% of Ukrainians, as previously stated," Mr Moroz is quoted as telling the Moscow newspaper Izvestiya.
"Thanks to the tapes we know how this victory was obtained - there was elementary intimidation and coercion of people using the police and the tax service."
Mr Moroz said the president could avoid prosecution by confirming the authenticity of the tapes and resigning voluntarily. Alternatively, "mass political actions" would be organised to topple him.
Foreign experts say that the tapes are authentic.