KIEV, August 1 /TASS/. Ukraine’s Opposition Bloc insists on early parliamentary elections to Ukraine because of corrupt authorities and problems with freedom of speech and justice in the country.
"The authorities have been talking about democratic reforms and transformations for two and a half years. But Ukraine remains an unfree country where censorship and corruption dominate and where there is no fair and honest justice," the party said in its statement. "Parliamentary elections are the only way to stop repressions, corruption and censorship," the Opposition Bloc said.
The opposition is calling on the authorities to stop political persecution of dissidents and investigate high-profile corruption scandals in order not to lose the world community’s support and restore the trust of the people of Ukraine.
"The Ukrainian society demands an answer to one question: where the hundreds of millions of dollars which ex-premier Arseniy Yatsenyuk allocated for the construction of a so-called Wall [defensive structures on the Russian-Ukrainian border] have gone," the statement said.
The Opposition Bloc also wants to know if the authorities are investigating a statement of Nikolai Gordiyenko, the former head of the State Financial Inspection, who testified that Yatsenyuk’s government had misappropriated 7.6 billion hryvnias (306 million US dollars).
According to the Opposition Bloc, high-profile murders of journalists and opposition figures remain unresolved in Ukraine and radical attacks on the editorial offices of various media outlets have become commonplace.