Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is
asking Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to immediately table in
parliament a motion to relieve Yuriy Lutsenko of the internal affairs
minister's duties.
Yushchenko expressed this
request in a letter to Tymoshenko, the presidential press service
reported. He attributed this move to essential weakening of the fight
with corruption and crime. The President drew attention to the fact
that in the course of ten months of the current year, the number of
solved corruption crimes fell by 13.9%, and the number of corrupt
officials called to account by 15.4%. The weakening of the fight
against corruption, Yushchenko says, mainly owes to the law-enforcement
bodies (40.2%).
Repeated calls on the interior minister for
intensification of work are ignored, the President
emphasized. Yushchenko recently called a meeting with power officers to
have accused the heads of the law-enforcement bodies of corrupt
practices, following which Lutsenko walked out in protest.
Lutsenko is
the leader of the People's Self-Defense organization, whose
parliamentary group is part of the ruling coalition and actively
supports the Prime Minister. On January 17, 2010 Ukraine will vote for
a new president.
