Lviv court bans Marxist Workers' Party of Ukraine

MADRID, 12 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

An appeals court in Lviv has banned the activities of the Marxist Workers' Party of Ukraine, thus ruling in favor of the Justice Ministry's arguments regarding the pro-Russian formation.

With this new ban, there are already sixteen political parties that have seen their activities censored and their assets requisitioned based on the martial law signed by the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, in response to the start of the war announced by his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. , last February 24.

However, the Workers' Party still has the possibility of appealing this decision to the Supreme Court. Founded in April 2012, since 2015 it has been trying to modify its statutes and withdraw the definition of a Marxist-Leninist formation, said the Chesno movement, a civil organization that fights for political transparency in Ukraine.

The leader and founder of the party, Oleksander Bondarchuk, has explained that since 2015, on the occasion of "decommunization", he has been trying to make changes to the party's statutes to eliminate these references to Marxism, but the Ministry of Justice "constantly returned " the erasers.

"As a result of such bureaucratic slingshots (...) we did not make any changes and that is why now they are going to ban the match," protested Bondarchuk, about whom a criminal case was opened in 2015 for allegedly attacking the territorial integrity of Ukraine for some publications in the newspaper 'Robochy Klas'.

Last week this same court already ratified the suspension of the activities of the Communist Party of Ukraine and Happy Ukraine, the political formation created by the former Minister of Income and Duties Oleksandr Klymenko, in the government of former President Viktor Yanukovych.

Since its creation in 2012, it has never stood for election, be it presidential, legislative, or local. Of all the banned parties, only the Opposition Platform for Life had significant parliamentary representation.

Ukrainian courts have previously banned fifteen parties, including Shari's Party, Nashi (Our) Party, Opposition Bloc, Left Opposition, Union of Left Forces, State, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialists, or Bloc of Vladimir Balance.