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Thousands of demonstrators urged Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko to resign by Feb. 18, the anniversary of the last days of EuroMaidan Revolution, as they marched in central Kyiv on Feb. 4.
Ukraine’s police estimated there to be 2,500 attendees, while Ukrainska Pravda online newspaper said up to 10,000 protesters attended the march.
The demonstrators called for Poroshenko’s removal from office either through his resignation or impeachment hoping that more people will join the cause. The next scheduled rally will take place on Feb. 18.
Yuriy Derevyanko, a top official of ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s Movement of New Forces party, read the resolution of the rally, calling on Poroshenko to come to Maidan Nezalezhnosti on Feb. 18 and announce his resignation.
Saakashvili said at the rally that the Ukrainian people would be more lenient to Poroshenko if he stepped down voluntarily.
“But if he holds on to power, keeps repressing people, stifling the economy, raiding businesses, creating private armies and preparing to rig elections, he will be severely punished and nothing will save him from the anger of the people,” Saakashvili said.
He added that protest leaders would come up with a potential list of new ministers and 10 potential presidential candidates by Feb. 18.
“When our soldiers were being killed to defend their families, our commander-in-chief was relaxing in the Maldives and throwing out hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Indian Ocean,” Saakashvili said. “When Ukrainians were being killed, the commander-in-chief fled and was hiding with a fake passport. He doesn’t give a damn about our soldiers and about Ukraine.”
Poroshenko, who denied the accusations of wrongdoing, took a secret, vastly expensive, week-long Christmas vacation in the Maldives, a report by a Ukrainian investigative TV show Skhemy unveiled on Jan. 18.
Saakashvili also said that Poroshenko would likely react to his harsh statements by trying to arrest the former Georgian president again or expel him from the country – an approach similar to what he did back in December, when Saakashvili was arrested on Dec. 5 after he led the first rally to impeach Poroshenko on Dec. 3.
The Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeal will consider rejecting Saakashvili’s political asylum application on Feb. 5. Saakashvili says the rejection could trigger his deportation or extradition, which he and his lawyers believe to be unlawful.
Saakashvili’s lawyers argue that their client cannot be legally deported or extradited regardless of his asylum status, because it is unlawful to deport or extradite permanent stateless residents of Ukraine. It is also unlawful to deport or extradite Saakashvili because he is under investigation in a Ukrainian criminal case, they say.
Protesters demand the resignation of President Petro Poroshenko at a march on Feb. 4.
The protesters initially planned to march down Shevchenko Boulevard and Khreshchatik Street to Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the city’s main square. However, the police and National Guard blocked Khreshchatyk Street and Maidan Nezalezhnosti, saying that another rally was taking place on Khreshchatyk Street by protesters who called for cheaper car registration of European Union license plates.
Saakashvili accused Oleh Yaroshevych, the leader of the alternative protest, of serving Poroshenko’s interests by standing in the way of the protesters against Poroshenko and of being financed by Poroshenko’s allies. Yaroshevych denied the accusations.
The authorities also installed some metal structures with Ukrainian national colors on Maidan Nezalezhnosti without a clear purpose. Protesters said that structures prevented them from setting up a stage and holding a rally at the site.
“These iron structures look like iron diapers for the commander-in-chief who’s scared (of protesters),” Saakashvili said.
To avoid provocations and clashes with the police demonstrators decided to march down Volodymyrska Street and Mykhailivska Street to Yevropeiska Square where a stage had been set up.
Some of the protesters also organized a motorcade and went to Poroshenko’s luxury estate in Kyiv’s high-end suburb of Kozyn to present their demands to the president. The event was reminiscent of the AutoMaidan movement’s trips to ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Mezhyhirya estate during the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.
One of the speakers at the rally was Kateryna Petrenko, an activist of Saakashvili’s party. She said that the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, had searched the apartment of her 80-year old grandmother in the run-up to the rally and seized the $7,000 that her family had been saving for a long time.
Saakashvili said earlier that the SBU had been searching the homes of Movement of New Forces activists and interrogating many of them before the rally.
