The arrival of a new government has never been painless. It causes pain not only because part of society suffers defeat and frustrated hopes. The fact that the champions of the old regime are more or less actively trying to fit into the new political regime also adds to the dramatic aspect of the situation.

That is probably why lustration is currently one of the most widely discussed issues in Ukraine. Yet the discussion of the need for or inadmissibility of personnel, political and other purges in post-election Ukraine is obviously in vain. Not because one will have to lustrate practically every weighty political figure in order to avoid double standards, as Vakhtanh Kipiani believes, speaking negatively of this idea in his article in the Ukrainska Pravda. Accordingly, both social democrat Nestor Shufrych and his former party-mate Petro Poroshenko are now claiming to the Prime Minister’s post should be lustrated. So too are current Presidential Administration head Viktor Medvedchuk, and his predecessor in this post, the current Speaker of parliament, Volodymyr Lytvyn. What interesting logic. “A purging procedure”, however, presupposes a certain limitation of the time of improper acts by certain characters. Thus, during the Bolshevik purges, a lustration example cited by the author, nobody remembered the Tatar yoke time. Similarly, crimes of the Kaiser’s Germany were not investigated in anti-Nazi lawsuits, as a result of which many public figures of Hitler’s Germany became victims of idem lustration.

Lustration in Ukraine is practically impossible, since this process should be based on law. However, it is very unlikely that such a law could appear in the near future. First, even if this bill is drafted, it would not get enough votes in parliament, with half consisting of the potential victims of such lustration. Second, … such qualities as vengefulness, or, moreover, blood-thirst are not in the Ukrainian mentality. This was once more confirmed by the fact that millions of Ukrainians pin their hopes and expectations of a better future on Viktor Yushchenko because of his image as a righteous and ethical politician. Obviously, these qualities do not agree with hitting a man when he’s down, performing a witch-hunt, or finding scapegoats. Their inadmissibility is emphasized each time the relations of the new government with its former ill wishers come up.

There’s no doubt that the generosity of the winner and his high moral standards as a part of his pre-election brand should prevent Yushchenko and his team from a vulgar squaring of accounts with their defeated adversary. But one should not forget that the most popular of Yushchenko’s election slogans was “Bandits to Prisons!” One can hardly remember a single Yushchenko speech when he did not say this phrase. It has always raised a storm of applause in his audience, since it happened to meet the sentiments, feelings, thoughts and expectations of most Ukrainians. If a thief who has stolen millions of money from the budget, and consequently the money of pensioners, invalids, doctors and teachers, must be sent to prison, then why should the criminals who tried to steal millions of votes and were caught red-handed remain unpunished? This is the case even if they represent the loser’s side, which traditionally has the right for the kindness of the winner.

The winner may be kind, but the law is stern. Thus, quotes of articles 157, 158, and 159 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which after the first round were put up at the polling stations near the workplaces of election commission members, prevented many of them from legal violations as it would cost them from two to twelve years in prison. This stopped many of them, but not all. As a result, there was a historic decision by the Supreme Court of Ukraine, which recognized the election results as falsified.

For the time being, the general public still does not know what the charges related to the presidential election were, and against which people they were brought by the Prosecutor General’s office. However, we can make certain assumptions concerning the prospects of those involved in the vote-rigging. For example, the Zakarpatsky Oblast prosecutor Mykoal Hoshovsky said that his department had began 38 criminal cases with charges of meddling in the election process. Interestingly, only nine of them directly relate to Criminal Code articles providing for responsibility for hindering the right to vote, forgery of voting documents and incorrect vote count. All the rest are charges of hooliganism at polling stations, bulling and physical assault of election commission members, beating voters, etc. “Three man were arrested; a decision was made to bring criminal actions against the other four, but since they are hiding they are being sought. Fourteen more people were identified, their place of stay is being determined and additional evidence of their involvement in criminal actions is being collected; one person has been detained,” - the Zakarpatsky prosecutor was quoted as saying by the internet publication The Political Ukraine.

However, lawyer Oleksiy Reznikov (who participated in the historic session of the Supreme Court on Yushchenko’s side) believes it is essential that the penalty for all legal violations is imposed upon the key figures of the Falsification project. It is very likely that only the lower ranks of the carefully-built scheme will be held responsible. The most odious figure of the project’s top-managers is Serhiy Kivalov. Maybe his actions could not be prosecuted in line with the election law articles of the Criminal Code, yet there are many other Criminal articles in line with which criminal proceedings could be brought against those who infringed on voters’ rights. Yet if the former Central Election Commission head is not given legal assessment, any punishment of a divisional election committee member who committed a violation under the threat of a job loss or physical assault would be the peak of injustice. On the other hand, one should not go to extremes and pin all accusations upon Kivalov.

Special attention must be paid to the Ukrainian media space. Drastic changes occurring there on the eve of the so-called third round of the election, cannot serve as an excuse for the limitless lies, insinuations and manipulations that ruled a number of national TV channels and print media before the orange revolution.

We can discourse on people who realized their mistakes and returned to the rules of journalists’ ethics and proved this with their further work. Thus one should not recollect their disgraceful past every time. One the other hand, we can look at the split society and the thousands of people bewildered by propaganda, and realize that this is too high a price for someone’s “momentary mistake.” The law demands responsibility for such mistakes. After expert legal examination of election commercials broadcasted by several national TV channels before the first and second rounds of the election, the law firm Kisil and Partners came to the conclusion that some of them contained information intending to stir up national hatred. In particular this refers to the reels on “SS Halychyna”, UNA activities, Yu.Kryvoruchko and Ye.Kovalenko, reels on dividing Ukraine into 1^st, 2nd and 3d grades and “sub-Ukrainians” speaking the Russian language. According to Article 2 of the law on television and radio broadcasting, TV and radio stations may not promote racial, national or religious hatred, disseminate information undermining public morale or provoking illegal actions, or belittle human honor and dignity.

The lawyers believe that the information in some of the reels may not correspond to reality and belittle human honor and dignity. In particular, this refers to the reels on “devastation and disasters”, which Viktor Yushchenko would cause and on “crimes” allegedly committed by Yulia Tymoshenko.

Inevitability of punishment is the best means of preventing crime. We will certainly miss UT-1, 1+1, Inter or ICTV, but did they not violate the law on radio and television, thus leading to their licenses being suspended? By court order, of course. Anyway, their general directors, producers and other top managers should be brought to responsibility.

Otherwise, we will not be able to avoid repeating history. A recent anchor of the 1+1 TV channel spoke rather confidently of his professional-if you could call it that-future as a guest on Channel 5. “We have a very short political memory. My talent will soon be claimed,” he said. If we do not see public lawsuits for those who used this country to their selfish financial political ends, most likely it will happen as he describes.