Last Thursday Speaker entered his office as passions ran high

Last Thursday Verkhovna Rada Speaker Ivan Pliushch and his Deputy Stepan Havrysh, elected by the parliamentary majority, occupied their office rooms in the Verkhovna Rada building (it will be recalled that majority representatives voiced earlier their desire to solve the problem of parliamentary split exclusively by peaceful means). As representatives of the Left factions told UNIAN, three security guard platoons arrived at 5 Hrushevsky Street. The guards blocked the entrance by forming a human chain, thus trying to deny Left Deputies entry into the building. This information was confirmed to The Day by a Communist Party secretariat employee who, incidentally, declined to reveal his identity. The Left representatives sent a fax message to the media, saying that accredited journalists were asked to leave the premises. We failed to get in touch with the Verkhovna Rada secretariat because, as the Left claims, their telephone lines had been cut off. Meanwhile, some television channels showed the Left lawmakers attempt to break through the police cordons. The People’s Deputies picked a fight which soon ended in a clear victory of the police. Communist leader Petro Symonenko told the New Channel that these events amounted to “a strong-arm anti-constitutional coup.”

On Wednesday, Oleksandr Tkachenko and Adam Martyniuk, dismissed as Speaker and Deputy Speaker by the Right majority, left their offices and gave instructions to seal them pending a Constitutional Court ruling on the Left factions’ suit about illegality of the Right majority decisions.

Leonid Kravchuk pointed out that the Right had resorted to no “violent measures” and reiterated the majority’s aspiration to settle the conflict peacefully.