The Ukrainian information space was rocked by another shocking act by deputy of the presidential party Alexei Goncharenko (Read more about him Alexey Goncharenko. Ex-regional, tipped for the post of head of the Ministry of Health).
This time he painted the word “Nein” (no, – approx.) on a fragment of the Berlin Wall installed near the diplomatic mission building.
With this act, he expressed his protest against the statement of German Ambassador Ernst Reichel about the possibility of organizing the electoral process in the east of the country without the withdrawal of Russian troops.
SKELET-info analyzes what consequences this may have for the state and the BPP deputy himself.
Backlash
After the scandalous act, Goncharenko himself told the journalist that the choice of place was not accidental.
“This is a fragment of the Berlin Wall, the same one that divided Berlin for many years and is a symbol of the Kremlin’s occupation of Europe. And I would like to remind the Germans of their own history and give this fragment the ambassador’s answer to his ideas in the Kremlin style,” Goncharenko said.
However, even during the action, diplomatic mission employees tried to prevent an act of vandalism, but they were unable to do this, since the parliamentarian was hiding behind parliamentary immunity.
The response was not long in coming. Just a few hours later, the German Foreign Ministry called the people’s deputy’s behavior “absolutely inappropriate,” since 25 years ago Germany was the first to recognize the independence of Ukraine and also provided it with full support in implementing reforms.
Comments from Goncharenko’s parliamentary colleagues were not long in coming.
Sergey Leshchenko
Sergei Leshchenko, also representing the BPP, believes that the people’s representative should be deprived of the opportunity to participate in the work of the Ukrainian delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
“With such a step, the deputy provokes a deterioration in Ukraine’s relations with a key partner in Europe. As a measure of influence, I propose that the faction expel this deputy from the Ukrainian delegation to PACE. Without a reaction to this act, the BPP faction stands in solidarity with this unfriendly step and the subsequent likely deterioration of relations between Ukraine and Germany,” Leshchenko noted on his Facebook page.
The main “radical” Oleg Lyashko (read more about him, Combat Radical Lyashko) went even further. He believes that Goncharenko should be forced to surrender his deputy mandate altogether.
“The lack of reaction from the President discredits Ukraine,” the oppositionist believes.
Consequences for Ukraine
However, it is difficult to agree with Lyashko’s opinion: the lack of a unified and clear position of the country’s leadership can have far-reaching consequences for Ukraine. This is due to the fact that in this case we are talking about a serious act not just on the part of a people’s deputy, but from the deputy head of the faction of the presidential party in parliament and a member of PACE.
In other words, a person who seriously influences the political image of Ukraine abroad.
The President’s statement appeared only the next day – February 9. According to him, yesterday’s incident is a manifestation of a private position, which the party condemned.
He had nothing else to say: after Britain’s exit from the EU, friction with Poland over Bandera, the upcoming elections in France, where a person more loyal to Moscow will most likely win, Germany remains Ukraine’s last powerful ally in Europe. We should not forget that Germany lends our state hundreds of millions of euros.
Were there any alternatives?
If we rely on the people’s deputy’s point of view that he wanted to effectively respond to the ambassador, then he had at least two alternatives: publicly express his position to the foreign press (Goncharenko is fluent in English and Western media knows him) and use his influence on Western partners in the status of PACE representative.
In any case, both the Administration of the President of Ukraine and the German Foreign Ministry note that the Minsk Agreements are the basis for resolving the situation in Donbass. And they regulate the holding of elections in the east just after the Ukrainian side has established full control over the border.
Therefore, such “performances” on the part of people’s representatives only harm the image of the country. In particular, after such cases, the EU may listen more carefully to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)’s opinion on what the current composition of the Ukrainian parliament and the ruling party as a whole is.
Pavel Viktorov, for SKELET-info
