On Sunday, the Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko, for re-election. However, many distrust him. Because of the corruption in the country has increased – as seen in the port city of Odessa.
A man is staring at us from the passenger seat from the front, the rear Windows of the van are tinted. Who is sitting else is in there? Oleg Michailik is standing ten meters away on the citizens and is suddenly nervous, despite the bullet-proof vest. A short exchange of words with the bodyguard of the police, then the two go back quickly in the direction of party headquarters. The white van roars away. Local politicians Michailik breathes easily, but the nervousness remains. Actually, this is a perfectly normal street in the city centre of Odessa. The right and left houses, Parking cars, Odessa is a port and tourist city.
a local politician Oleg Michailik was shot because he had spoken out against the corrupt Elite of Odessa.
Michailik was shot
However, a normal street in Odessa, was also in the Michailik on 22. September 2018, fired suddenly, and was hit. “I was clinically dead. Only by a miracle, and thanks to the professionalism of the Doctors managed to resuscitate me,” he says. For him it is clear This was an attack on him, because he had spoken out publicly against the corrupt Elite of Odessa. “Some of the perpetrators were apprehended, but I have never seen and, therefore, great doubt, that they were really. No one is talking about those who have given the crime in order, although I’ll take them with the municipal administration of Odessa and the mayor Trukhanov.”
The attack on Michailik is not an isolated case. A Truck has to drive the entrepreneurs and local politicians Michailo Kusakon, he, too, has since been running in a bullet-proof vest through the city. The environmental activist Switlana Podpalaja was attacked by 2017 with a can of pepper spray on the way home – how many others on the day.
attacks on activists
Podpalaja was the first female activist was attacked in Odessa in fact. “It was a series of attacks, they tried to intimidate us,” says Podpalaja. “It had to do with that, they started to expropriate the owners of green plants, and they had to eliminate the most active people, or intimidate.”
Switlana Podpalaja was the first female activist who was physically attacked.
Behind you suspected a Clan to Odessiter business people and the mayor of the city Gennady Trukhanov. A number of urban land – such was the reproach of the activists – had been sold from under him to business people close to the mayor. He had robbed the city, you will find. Trukhanov you meet mainly in court. He is accused, because he should have been with public money enriches. Further allegations of millions of serious fraud, enrichment via Offshore companies, the abuse of power.
courts and Prosecutor’s office are considered to be corrupt
in An Interview, he rejects these days. Activists doubt that the court will make a tough judgment. Because in the Ukraine courts, Prosecutor’s office and law enforcement authorities are still corrupt. “In the past five years, the corruption has become worse and worse,” says local politicians Michailik. “And now, it is so that you can prevail neither in court nor in the police of his rights.”
Poroshenko: “Indecisive fight against corruption”
The indecisive fight against corruption is one of the reasons why the incumbent President Petro Poroshenko is serious about his re-election need to be concerned about. Nearly 70 percent of Ukrainians mistrust him. A Bureau of Investigation for corruption cases in his tenure. However, the court to sit in judgment on such cases, it is still not working. “In the ideal world, the President promotes the establishment of anti-corruption bodies and not opposing with all his force independent law enforcement authorities,” Witalii Ustymenko, a local activist who had demonstrated in 2014 for the Maidan movement.
In Odessa and make a lot of Poroshenko responsible for ensuring that the mayor Trukhanov is still in office despite the corruption process. Trukhanov openly supported the President.
