KGB tales – or KGB entrails? (What about the rule of law?)

BY NIKOLAI HOLMOV 

Known for his well established ties to and within organised crime, incumbent Mayor Gennady Trukhanov is being reelected to the role – perhaps/probably/maybe he already has been.  The jury, if there was one in Ukraine (despite the Constitution providing for juries) remains out.

Indeed Mayor Trukhanov is on public record relating to his relationship with organised crime (he’s just not on record about his role within it, despite it being very well known).  The Mayor and Odessa’s top Don Alexander Angert have known each other since the bloody and lawless 1990s and their roles within a “security company” called “Captain Security”.  Any reader with any knowledge of the region will know full well what “security companies” were during the 1990s – and more than a passing “acquaintance” with Mr Angert and his current businesses still remain as far as Mr Trukhanov is concerned.

Of Mr (Don) Angert, Mayor Trukhanov has said ““I have not studied his biography , his past , I did not take a certificate from the district department of his criminal record. I did not care about people’s past. He worked openly, he was not hounded by the authorities. In a word, a decent, normal person. Since then, we have a relationship. He’s a free man, and I do not attach any significance to talk about his criminal past.”

Regarding Mr Angert’s company ROST, which does terribly well with “City contracts” Mayor Trukhanov is on record stating “I have no relationship with this company, even though I know it well.”

Certainly his words are not lies – but they are not truths either.

For anybody that has even the slightest clue about organised crime/mafia in Odessa, where, how and with whom Mayor Trukhanov fits is no secret, and any criminal organagram places him nowhere near the bottom of the heap – far from it.  He sits loftily along side Zhokov, above the likes of “Lampochka” Galidilnik and Ruslan Bodelan.

However, it is not of Gennady Trukhanov this entry is written.

There is now a legal challenge by Sasha Borovik relating to Mayor Trukhanov’s first round win, specifically regarding accusations of fraud and electoral violations (and fraud there was – albeit not only by Trukhanov).  At the very least a recount seems likely which may, or may not, cause a second round run off between Messrs Trukhanov and Borovik.  Yet a recount in no way addresses the lawlessness of this election campaign.

If there is a second round, then it is probable Trukhanov will win anyway- and lawfully (so why a first round victory at any nefarious cost) – but the legal challenges, and certainly a recount, should be supported given the flagrant disregard for the rule of (electoral) law during the entire electoral process in Odessa that ran from the very start of campaigning through to ballot counting.  Regardless of who eventually becomes mayor, prosecutions have to occur lest the next elections follow the same illicit route.  Simply moving on will not help Odessa, nor Ukraine.

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