A Ukrainian lawmaker found himself in an uneasy situation as President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded that he pay $7 million to repair a local road.
President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast on July 2 and was appalled by the poor level of the local roads. At a meeting with local officials, Zelensky saw in the crowd lawmaker Andriy Ivanchuk, who recently got re-elected to parliament in one of the oblast’s single-constituency districts, and asked him to find the money to repair one of the roads. Ivanchuk reluctantly agreed, but later tried to back off.
The meeting took place in Ivano-Frankivsk, provincial capital of 230,000 residents 520 kilometers southwest from Kyiv, where Zelensky also presented a new governor.
At the meeting, the mayor of Kosmach, a town in the lower Carpathian Mountains, complained to Zelensky that the road leading to Kosmach hasn’t been repaired since the 1990s. The official said that its reconstruction would cost Hr 175 million, or nearly $7 million.
Hearing that, Zelensky addressed Ivanchuk, who was at the meeting, and demanded him to find the money for the road, saying that it wouldn’t be a problem for him.
Ivanchuk is the deputy head of People’s Front party faction in the outgoing parliament and a close ally of ex-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, whom he knows since college. Ivanchuk was a target of several anti-corruption investigations though he denies all accusations and was never officially charged.
In 2015, then Agricultural Policy Minister Ihor Shvaika accused Ivanchuk of having links to state-owned alcohol producer Ukrspyrt and smuggling alcohol through Moldova with Yury Ivanyushchenko, an ally of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych. Ivanchuk was also suspected of not including part of his assets in his public declaration and of involvement in a raider attack on Sofiysky fitness center in Kyiv, according to Chesno anti-corruption watchdog.
Ivanchuk’s People’s Front party, which got the highest percentage in 2014 parliamentary elections, grew unpopular and didn’t run to parliament on July 21. This made its former lawmakers seek re-election in single-member districts.
Zelensky in his informal and half-joking manner asked Ivanchuk, who was re-elected as an independent lawmaker in the single-member district No. 88 in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, whether he had Hr 175 million.
When Ivanchuk tried to refer to the budget money, Zelensky cut him short saying: “What do you have to do with the budget? You have already been cut off from it.”
Ivanchuk tried to point out that the road in question was not in his district, but in the neighboring district, where a member of Zelensky’s party Volodymyr Tymofiychuk was elected as a lawmaker.
But Zelensky insisted that Ivanchuk pay for the road.
“I know that you know people who have this money. They have it for breakfast, for lunch, and for dinner,” the president said. “I’m asking you like a man. These people will respect you if you do it.”
Ivanchuk eventually had to agree.
“I will help,” he said.
Zelensky warned that if Ivanchuk fails to keep his promise, he would give Ivanchuk’s phone number to residents of Kosmach.
Later that day, however, Ivanchuk posted a video on Facebook where he said he interpreted Zelensky’s request as an offer to help Zelensky’s party’s newly elected lawmaker to draft a plan for the reconstruction of the road using the budget money.
But the president wasn’t letting him go. He commented on Ivanchuk’s post.
“No, Mr. Ivanchuk. You made a promise, so you should pay for it,” Zelensky wrote.
