[ANTICORRUPTION BODIES NEUTERED] Statement of Narodvladdâ (People’s Power-Labour Party)

The ruling oligarchy and its corrupt servants want to continue to rob the Ukrainian people with impunity! Statement of the Narodovladdâ Party on the criminal Bill no. 12414

[Edited machine translation] Today the Verkhovna Rada adopted in its entirety as law Bill no. 12414, which actually makes impossible the emergence of even the chance for a real fight against corruption in Ukraine in the near future. We are talking about extremely negative changes in the organisation of the work of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine (SAPO), voted for by the "servants" [reference to Zelensky’s party Servant of the People], as well as by the MPs from the OPZH [Opposition Platform – For Life ] and the so-called "parliamentary opposition" - the Motherland faction, and separate MPs from European Solidarity and Voice. It shows that those representatives of the so-called "parliamentary opposition" who did not vote for this bill, or who supposedly "blocked the speaker” [from putting the bill to the vote] or who are now shouting about "dictatorship" on social media, did in fact in no way prevent it from being passed. Even though there would have been quite enough of them to block the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada and abort the vote.

Firstly, it is important to note that there are actually a lot of issues regarding the impact of NABU and SAPO on social justice. There is the waste of billions in budget funds that every year go to their running in the absence of significant results. There is the presence of their list of "untouchables" and their stubborn refusal to acknowledge the obvious facts of corruption of a whole number of top officials. For example, the mayor of Kyiv, Klitschko, about whom Narodvladdâ has repeatedly appealed to the NABU with undeniable evidence of his crimes, has received in response refusal of a proper investigation, with the decent investigators of the NABU directly telling us that "there is a ‘do-not-touch’ regarding Klitschko”.

Let's not forget about the undisputed corruption of the current heads of NABU themselves. The infamous director of NABU Kryvonos, who was supposed to go to prison for his crimes of corruption as head of the State Inspection of Architecture and Urban Building of Ukraine (as was demanded by Narodovladdâ), "Servant" nonetheless pushed into the position of director of the NABU—obviously to have its own factotum in such an important position. Or there was Uglavu, a former deputy of Kryvonos’s, who leaked information about important investigations, his way of helping corrupt people to avoid accountability. Finally, there’s also recent reports about the exposure of Russian agents among the employees of NABU. Obviously, all these facts should produce proper investigations and criminal proceedings, and all NABU officials involved in corruption or treason should be sent to jail.

But all these obvious flaws and problems of the NABU and SAPO, which for years have been made public by Narodovladdâ - are not grounds for making their evolution into truly independent institutions impossible, as is done by the bill voted through today. Yes, these important bodies are unfortunately still not truly independent and with them the rule of law has often gone missing, but normal authorities would work to promote that true independence and integrity, not disable it in principle! If, for example, a man has an infected hand, you don't need to hurry to amputate it, it just needs to be treated.

But it's precisely “amputation” of NABU and SAPO that the newly adopted law provides for.

In the event that Zelensky signs it into law:

• Only the Attorney General will be able to report suspicions of corruption on the part of the management of the Office of the President, members of the Cabinet, the management of the Bureau of Economic Security (BEB) and the State Bureau of Investigation (DBR), as well as other category A officials;
• The Prosecutor General will be able to take cases from the NABU and assign investigation to other authorities;
• Closing any case of the NABU/SAPO against top officials will become possible by decision of the Prosecutor General, and making an agreement in a corruption case will also be possible by bypassing SAPU management agreement—via the Prosecutor General;
• The Prosecutor General will be given the opportunity to demand any pre-trial investigation materials from any investigative body, in particular, NABU;
• The Prosecutor General will be able to act as the actual head of the SAPO with regard to other prosecutors, as well as being able to provide NABU investigators with written instructions.

If this law is signed by the President of Ukraine, then the NABU and the SAPO will cease to be separate anti-corruption bodies and lose the chance of evolving into true independent anti-corruption institutions. They will actually become kind of "branches" of the Office of the Attorney General, wholly dependent on the Prosecutor, and thus on the actual parliamentary custodian of law enforcement authorities, Servant of the People deputy Ermak Oleg Tatarov.

Such changes to the law are a real dream for the corrupt top people. Although the criminal cases of the NABU, unfortunately, do not yet secure the imprisonment of the corrupt top people, and many of the villains are left untouched by the Bureau “for some reason”, they still provided significant public benefit. Most of all, society can learn about these top corrupt people and their assets, and a significant part of these bastards lose their position under further pressure from the Ukrainian people. By doing so, by receiving the right information, people have the opportunity to draw the right political conclusions and effectively influence power in the future.

After significant public backlash Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Unity [Oleksiy] Chernishov, the highest official to come under NABU suspicion, was forced to leave the government in disgrace. By the way, it is likely that the situation with Chernishov, who is personally very close to Zelensky, became the catalyst for today's legislative changes.

But if the newly adopted law comes into force, then even this sort of half-win will not exist! Not to mention that the road to the improvement of NABU and SAPO as separate anti-corruption institutions will be completely closed off. So today for all the corrupt bastards in the country there is a hundred percent good reason to open a bottle of expensive champagne at an "elite" restaurant and celebrate.

Separately, it should be noted that the very procedure of adoption of the bill was a gross violation of the Regulation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Yes, these disgraceful changes were due to the amendment being brazenly "shoved" into a bill addressing a completely different issue, pre-trial investigation into missing persons! And this amendment was moved by People's Deputy Buzhansky. The amendments committee considered the issue this morning for literally 10 minutes, and in the absence of the committee chairman. The bill was immediately brought into the plenary session, very quickly included in the agenda and voted on, almost without discussion. And [speaker Ramon] Stefanchuk immediately signed it and sent it off for Zelensky's signature. It is obvious that the actual initiators of this criminal bill are the Yermak-Zelensky-Tatarov trio, and their top corrupt friends are clearly in a hurry to get this law into force as quickly as possible.

Considering all of the above, the Labour Party (Narodvladdâ) is publicly appealing to Zelensky to exercise his constitutional right and veto this criminal bill. Yes, we understand very well that without his "say so" this bill would never have been passed, but we must do everything possible to prevent Zelensky from signing it anyway, and this can only happen due to substantial community pressure, as already happened in 2023 with the no less criminal bill 5655.

[UPDATE: It has already become known that, despite colossal public outrage, Zelensky still signed this criminal bill very quickly - on the same day. For us, this is quite expected, and we find that this is just another proof that he represents the interests of the exclusively ruling oligarchy and the rest of the wealthiest classes of the population and works against the interests of the majority of the Ukrainian people—the working people. We urge everyone to understand this and draw the relevant political conclusions!]

With this, we emphasise that, after the rejection of this "reform", there must still be meticulous work to transform the NABU and the SAPO into truly independent and honest institutions to fight corruption, work that Ukraine so needs.

And we point out that the anti-corruption authorities themselves, whatever authority they have and however much money is invested in them, are in no way a panacea against corruption.

In fact, the key to tackling top corruption is ending the oligarchy's rule and that of its servants in power and reducing the wealth inequality in the country.

Instead, this Verkhovna Rada (like previous legislatures) systematically votes for a variety of anti-national laws that only cement the rule of the oligarchy in Ukraine in place and widen the social gap between the richest one percent of the population and the majority of the Ukrainian people. Laws that are significantly worse than even today's criminal innovation.

As a result, this richest one per cent of citizens is getting richer compared to the absolute majority of the Ukrainian people and this only continues to intensify the demand for corruption in the system of public administration.

Only when the oligarchy as the main source of top corruption disappears, and there is an elected power that aims to increase the welfare of the majority of the Ukrainian people and pull people out of poverty will corruption at the top be brought down to the almost unnoticeable level applying in the developed democratic countries of Europe.

And for this you need to build a mass truly people's party, which will get rid this oligarchy. And that is what the Labour Party (Narodovladdâ) is about. So join—together for people’s power!