The ambassadors of the Group of Seven (G7) slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s idea to ban top officials who served under his predecessors from holding government office and seats in parliament, saying that this approach is not compatible with democracy.
Representatives of the seven members of the international forum of advanced economies published their criticism of Zelensky’s plan on Twitter on July 12.
The idea of banning top officials who served under President Viktor Yanukovych from holding government office — a process known as lustration — became law in 2014, after Yanukovych and his endemically corrupt administration were ousted from power in the EuroMaidan Revolution.
However, on July 11, Zelensky proposed expanding this law to the period after EuroMaidan, when acting President Oleksandr Turchynov and President Petro Poroshenko led the country. On July 12, Zelensky submitted a draft law on expanding lustration to parliament.
Moreover, Zelensky proposed including lawmakers who served under these presidents in the new lustration — a move that surprised many, as these individuals were publicly elected.
In their statement, the G7 ambassadors said that the current situation in Ukraine is “not comparable” to the period right after EuroMaidan, when the country needed to hold individuals guilty of abusing their offices accountable.
Moreover, Zelensky’s lustration law could undermine democracy.
“Electoral change and political rotation are the norm in democracies. Indiscriminate bans on all participants in executive and legislative governance are not,” their statement said.
Poroshenko, whom Zelensky defeated in the presidential election in April, also slammed the president’s idea, calling it a “pro-Russian revanche” in a statement shared by his party.
Moreover, Zelensky has been criticized for having Andriy Bohdan, who is subject to the current lustration law, as his chief of staff. Bohdan served as anti-corruption ombudsman in then-Prime Minister Mykola Azarov’s cabinet under Yanukovych in 2010-2014.
Zelensky also has several Poroshenko-era officials on his team. They are Oleksandr Danylyuk, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, and Aivaras Abromavicius, who currently heads the supervisory board of Ukroboronprom, a state arms producer. Under Poroshenko, Danylyuk served as finance minister and Abromavicius was economy minister.
The Constitutional Court is currently reviewing the lustration law passed in 2014 to determine whether it adheres to norms of the Constitution.
The G7 consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It included Russia until 2014, when Moscow was expelled from the forum for annexing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
