Sharp discussions about personnel appointments have been ongoing in Volyn's political circles for almost two months now. The Volyn regional organization of the UNP has already had its say in this discussion. Moreover, it did so in an ultimatum form.
But perhaps the greatest resonance is caused by the appointment of Vitaliy Zaremba as deputy head of the regional state administration. During the last press conference, the head of Volyn's "UNP members," People's Deputy of Ukraine Borys Zahreva, revealed interesting moments of the under-the-carpet struggle in the upper echelons of power.
"Lutsk Investment" presents a fragment of the transcript of Borys Zahreva's statement made on April 4, 2005, with minor stylistic edits.
"...I counted on the fact that personnel formation in the region would take place the way the President proposed. Since today the process of forming the executive branch of power is being completed and it contains odious individuals appointed to the relevant positions. They bring negativity through their participation in the executive bodies (voters do not accept them).
Let's take Zaremba. A person who worked the entire time as first deputy of Mr. Klimchuk, a person who contributed to destroying all those farms that were in the region, this person claims that he can do something differently. I am absolutely convinced that this person will not be able to do anything better than to engage in what he is engaged in today.
Today there is information coming from deputies of various levels that Mr. Zaremba, instead of dealing with agriculture today [...], is engaged in forming the People's Union party. There are calls to deputies of various levels, there are demands from him that, accordingly, factions be created and so on. Moreover, there is already today a clarification from the Constitutional Court that civil servants are prohibited from engaging, in particular, in political activity in the part that even Mr. Zaremba is doing. That is, we already see his first steps, where his actions are directed.
Furthermore, I am already being informed today that at the proposal of the head of the regional state administration, another position of first deputy is to be introduced, where Mr. Zaremba is being prepared for the fact that he will also be first deputy [...]. Well, in that case, I recall that conversation we had in the presence of KyryLchuk, Slabenko and Bondar... it was two days before the appointment of the head of the administration, where we discussed the issue regarding Zaremba in the corridors of the Verkhovna Rada. And where I frankly asked Mr. Bondar why he supports the agrarians' proposal that Zaremba should head the state administration. And he confirmed that he supports this position. In that case, we had to make certain decisions regarding preventing Zaremba from becoming head of the regional state administration. Because indeed there were confirmations from my fellow deputies who said that in those cells that were standing there, Zaremba's surname was first, then Zahreva's surname. And only after that, when I said that we would not allow it, that we would gather people here and not allow him to be head of the regional state administration, accordingly only after that did a proposal arise to replace Zaremba with Bondar.
When I had a meeting with Mr. Zinchenko, I told him that I would under no circumstances ever agree that the region should be headed by a person who went into the 2002 elections against "Our Ukraine," who poured dirt on both Yushchenko and his team, and who today, you see, has already changed and is ready to behave differently.
As you can see, the implementation still went through, and I understand that when Mr. Bondar supported Mr. Zaremba to become head of the administration, he accordingly also took him into this team.
The fact that he was proposed by the Socialist Party, believe me, is simply a trick. Because we know perfectly well that he was supported by the agrarians. And I even had a proposal from certain people's deputies that I agree to let Zaremba go. And, of course, Zaremba would then have appointed as first deputy the person whom I would have named. I did not go for these collusions because I knew, and I am convinced, that we should have done the formation completely differently and not done the way it was done subsequently, where Zaremba again emerged there as deputy head of the regional state administration."