People’s Self-Defence MPs refuse meeting with President

People’s Self Defence faction MPs insist that President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko dismiss his Chief of Staff Victor Baloha and incumbent Prosecutor General of Ukraine Oleksandr Medvedko.

According to an UNIAN correspondent, People’s Self Defence MP Oles Doniy read a respectve statement of PSD faction to journalists at the Presidential Secretariat on Monday. He noted that the corresponding decision was made yesterday at a meeting of PSD faction members.

Moreover, O. Doniy pointed out that PSD lawmakers were refused to meet separately with the President of Ukraine, so, they would not take part in the joint meeting of the President with the OU-PSD parliamentary faction members.

According to the statement, PSD MPs stress that an “artificial political crisis” has been created in Ukraine over the last several months.

According to the authors of the document, “activities of the Presidential Secretariat strengthen authoritarian tendencies and support usurpation of power by some political adventurers. Powerful actions aimed at real struggle with corruption are stopped with secret or open orders of the Secretariat of President”.

At the same time, the statement stresses, “a hunting after independently thinking politicians has begun in Ukraine”.

“Our Ukraine – People’s Self Defence faction officially addressed the President of Ukraine a week ago, with a demand to stop political repression against activists of the People’s Self Defence. In response, they merely intensified political repressions from the side of the Prosecutor’s General Office and the Security Service of Ukraine (the SBU), which are evidently coordinated by the Presidential Secretariat”, the statement notes.

The People’s Self-Defense parliamentary group demands President to dismiss Victor Baloha from the post of the Chief of Staff, as the “main figure in the sabotage of the government activities and as the organizer of the political repression campaign”, and Oleksander Medvedko from the post of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, for his inactivity in investigating cases brought on facts of state property embezzlement, and for his fulfilling dirty ordered politically motivated cases”, the statement reads.