President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has submitted a bill to the Verkhovna Rada that extends the lustration law to Petro Poroshenko and all the representatives of the authorities that headed the country from 2014 to 2019.
The previous lustration was held after Euromaidan and concerned officials from the time of Viktor Yanukovych’s leadership. According to the new draft law, the lustration should be extended to persons who held positions from February 23, 2014 to May 19, 2019 and who did not resign during this period of time. The new lustration may include former President Poroshenko, ministers, heads of law enforcement agencies, MPs, etc.
Former President Poroshenko said that Volodydmyr Zelensky’s initiative to lustrate all those who were in power from 2014 to 2019 was fantastic and was proof of “pro-Russian revanchism”. According to the press service of the European Solidarity Party, Poroshenko believes that in this way the new government is going to make room for the “fifth column”. According to the former president, “patriotic and effective politicians will be replaced by puppets who will carry out the Kremlin’s orders”.
G7 ambassadors have criticized Zelensky’s idea to conduct a new lustration, the Ukrayinska Pravda website wrote.
“Bringing those guilty of abuse of office to justice is the right step, but in our opinion, the current situation in Ukraine cannot be compared to the one after the Revolution of Dignity,” the ambassadors said in a statement.
