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Eastern Europe
March 22, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 18
Law enforcement agencies take sides as election tensions rise in Ukraine
Graham Stack in Berlin
As election tensions mount in Ukraine, different law enforcement agencies are showing competing allegiances. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who supervises the national police, and sympathises with the opposition, alleges that President Petro Poroshenko’s reelection campaign is involved in massive vote buying, and has called one of Po- roshenko’s campaign heads in for questioning. He also claims that Poroshenko-loyal agencies such the prosecutor general’s office and security ser- vice (SBU) are harassing the opposition.
Ukraine’s current presidential election is the
most unpredictable ever – and that is in a country that has only once reelected a president, Leonid Kuchma in 1998. There are currently three candi- dates for the top post with roughly equal chances. Incumbent Poroshenko and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko are neck and neck for second place in the polls, but, sensationally, TV comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy has come from nowhere to top ratings with a large lead over the two political dinosaurs. In the first round of voting on March 31, Zelenskiy seems likely to go through to the second round on April 21, where he will face the second- placing candidate – almost certainly either Ty- moshenko or Poroshenko. Given neophyte Zelens- kiy’s inexperience, anything could then happen.
But one of the key players in the election is a busi- nessman and politician who is not himself running for office – but currently holds the post of interior minister. 55-year-old Arvakov started his post- Soviet career as a banker and businessman in the
Behind the lens: Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has emerged as one of the key players in Ukraine's upcoming presidential elections, despite not being among the candidates.
East Ukraine city of Kharkiv, becoming a multimil- lionaire in the process. In 2005 he entered politics as governor of Kharkiv. After losing the post in 2010, he was forced into exile in Italy under the administration of Viktor Yanukovych when criminal charges were opened against him. But following Yanukovych’s ouster in the February 2014 Euro- maidan revolution, he returned to take the post
of interior minister – and went on to oversee the establishment of a new national police force that broke with Soviet traditions.
Now his ministry and the police force could play
a crucial role in determining the outcome of the elections, though he claims he is only interested in the elections being fair. But as Ukraine moves towards the first round of voting from a list of can- didates numbering over 40, tension is mounting and spilling over into competition between rival law enforcement agencies.
This is where Avakov comes in as a powerbroker. Back by his People’s Front party in parliament, one of the largest parliamentary groups, he is a political force independent of Poroshenko, with oversight of the national police, the largest nation- al law enforcement agency. While claiming neu- trality, Avakov has also at times expressed broad sympathy for both Tymoshenko and Zelenskiy. In
a TV interview on March 12, he drew gasps from the audience when he said the words: “There will be a new president.”
Read the full story here