The Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal has ruled that Ukraine’s Central Election Commission must register fugitive lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko as a candidate for parliament.
According to the Slidstvo.info investigative show, which claims to have received a copy of the official document, the decision was made during a hearing on June 21.
The Central Election Commission previously denied Onyshchenko’s application to register as a candidate on June 15. He then filed an appeal challenging the decision.
Snap parliamentary elections are scheduled for July 21.
Onyshchenko was previously lawmaker from the People’s Will faction. However, in 2016, prosecutors brought a slew of charges against him. In particular, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine charged him with stealing Hr 1.6 billion ($64 million) from state-owned gas production company Ukrgazvydobuvannya, an allegation which he denies.
Onyshchenko fled the country in 2016, before being stripped of his parliamentary immunity. Since then, he has lived in several European countries. That same year, he was placed on the wanted list in Ukraine.
Onyshchenko applied to run for parliament in 2019 as a member of the Socialist Party of Ukraine through a single-member district in Kyiv Oblast.
In denying his registration, the Central Election Commission said he did not qualify to run, as Ukrainian law requires candidates to live in Ukraine during the five years prior to the election.
During the appeal hearing, Onyshchenko’s legal team claimed that he had been representing Ukraine in equestrian sports competitions since 2016. As evidence, he provided a letter from the non-profit All-Ukrainian Equestrian Sports Federation of Ukraine.
Onyshchenko was president of the federation in 2002-2013. In 2012, the former lawmaker took part in an equestrian jumping individual competition at the Summer Olympics in London.
Oleksandr Onyshchenko rides a horse during a racing championship in the village of Protsyv in Kyiv Oblast on Sept. 17, 2012. The exiled lawmaker, facing corruption charges, has published alleged evidence implicating President Petro Poroshenko, his allies and ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in graft, chargess they deny. (UNIAN)
In 2012-2014, Onyshchenko was a lawmaker with former President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. He was elected in single-member district 93 in Kyiv Oblast. In 2014, he was elected again in this same district as an independent candidate.
This year, he once again applied to run in district 93.
Besides the allegations of stealing from Ukrgazvydobuvannya, the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, charged Onyshchenko with high treason in 2017. The SBU claimed he received Russian citizenship and was in contact with the Russian Federal Security Service. Onyshchenko denies any wrongdoing.
Since he fled the country, Onyshchenko has issued a number of allegations of graft by former President Petro Poroshenko and his inner circle.
He released an alleged recording implicating Poroshenko and Yanukovych’s former ecology minister, Mykola Zlochevsky, in corrupt deals.
Onyshchenko has also claimed to have been an intermediary in vote buying in the Ukrainian parliament and in paying for parliamentary seats.
