President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vetoed the scandalous draft law No. 9534, which provided for only voluntary disclosure of officials' declarations. Earlier, a petition calling for his veto had garnered more than 80,000 votes.
The President called the restrictions set by this draft law unacceptable. He emphasised that the declarations should be made public now, not in a year.
"The register should be opened now. In fact, the law should be voted on with this main amendment. Preferably quickly," he said.
In the morning, the bill was signed by the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, so that the document could be signed by the president or vetoed by him.
Despite public calls, the Verkhovna Rada passed the bill with only partial disclosure of declarations. The opportunity to keep their assets hidden was extended for another year, allowing them to be disclosed on a voluntary basis.
Against the backdrop of numerous journalistic investigations into MPs' expensive acquisitions during the war, this decision caused outrage, so a petition to veto the document quickly gathered the necessary number of votes for consideration.
In the Verkhovna Rada, the extension of the opportunity to keep their wealth out of the public eye was explained in different ways. Mykola Tyshchenko, who was expelled from the Servant of the People party, for example, said that it was necessary to prevent the FSB from finding out about the property. The head of the Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamyia, assured that the document was voted in a "passable way for our international partners to accept it." According to him, the request to close the declarations was made by declarants from frontline communities whose relatives could be in danger due to the publication of the data.