Party refuses to attend special parliamentary session tomorrow
PCP communists – all six of them – have issued a statement today to say they will NOT be in parliament to hear the address by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy tomorrow afternoon.
The party that suffered catastrophic losses in January’s legislative elections appeared to shoot itself in both feet over this issue when parliament invited Mr Zelenskyy to address the House via videolink – thus today’s announcement was not really a surprise.
But for reasons unclear the party chose to inflict further damage on itself by actually insulting Mr Zelenskyy.
Parliamentary leader Paula Santos – the same earnest MP who delivered the first shots to PCP feet – delivered the second this afternoon saying the party did not want to align with “a session conceived to give stage to the instigation of the escalation of war” (…) “with the participation of someone who personifies xenophobic and war mongering power”.
Ms Santos continued by explaining that as far as the PCP is concerned, “Ukraine tries to whitewash neonazi parties at the same time at the same time as banning antifascist parties…”
The very invitation – made on request of People Animals Nature party – has been made outside institutional criteria, said Ms Santos, reading from a prepared script which went into various atrocities she claims have been meted out by neo-nazis in Ukraine in the past.
It has been another ‘extraordinary day’, but the good news is that secretary-general António Guterres seems to have been girded into mediation mode following the appeal by 200 former UN senior officials to act before the UN becomes a complete irrelevance.
His official spokesperson has reported that Mr Guterres has written letters to both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, requesting audiences with both men on their own ground.
