By Pavel Polityuk
KIEV: Ukrainian lawmakers paved the way on Thursday for a close ally of President Petro Poroshenko to become the new general prosecutor, a position seen by the West as crucial for Ukraine to tackle entrenched corruption.
Parliament passed a law removing a requirement that only a person with a legal background can take the post. That will enable Yuriy Lutsenko, a former interior minister and head of Poroshenko's parliamentary faction, to take the job.
The appointment may disappoint the European Commission, which like the United States and the International Monetary Fund, has tied aid to Ukraine to Kiev's performance on corruption. Brussels had urged Poroshenko to appoint someone seen as independent who had a legal background.
Poroshenko squeezed out the previous top prosecutor, Viktor Shokhin, on whose watch the general prosecutor's office was widely criticised for hampering anti-corruption reforms.
Opposition lawmakers shouted "shame on you" before the vote took place.
"Lutsenko will definitely be a better prosecutor than Shokhin," Leonid Kozachenko, a lawmaker from Poroshenko's faction, told Reuters.
"I think that there will be some kind of conflict, a lack of understanding between the EU and Ukraine. But I hope that this conflict will disappear when Lutsenko begins real
investigations."
Reuters
