To show the public is on its side, the ruling pro-presidential Party of Regions organized a rally on April 2 in support of the European integration. The ruling party traditionally holds its own meetings on the days when oppositional parties come out onto the street.
The Party of Regions
meeting was attended by several hundred people, and was held by
Maruyinsky Park in Kyiv, separated by a police cordon from the
opposition’s own rally in front of the parliament building.
“I come for
Ukraine, its European integration. Friends told me there is a protest
today. I think something important is to be decided by the Rada
today,” says Andriy Petrov, a school pupil.
In a video released
by Blogger’s Kyiv group on Facebook, journalists
asked a number of people why came to the meeting.
Four of the respondents
had no idea what the meeting was about, and why they came. Others
knew in general terms/
“We’re here at a
meeting, against the state. The bad state. We need to live well,” a
young man said.
“Wherever we’re paid,
that’s where we’re going,” another man said.
In the meantime, the
morning session of parliament was wasted on fighting be all factions.
The opposition initially demanded to appoint a mayoral election in
Kyiv, but eventually were pulled into a debate on whether to vote on
several laws to mark Holodomor, the historic famine in Ukraine, or
the anniversary of Comsomol, the young wing of the Communist party in
the Soviet times.
The Party of Regions also
suggested to ban the use of derogatory words referring to various
ethnicities, such as Jews and Russians. None of the drafts received
enough support.
Kyiv Post staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can be reached at [email protected].
