Borys TARASIUK: Under certain conditions I am prepared to return to the executive branch
The hand of Moscow was the most widespread version of the reason for Borys Tarasiuk’s being replaced as Foreign Minister. In the interests of fairness, however, it must be mentioned that despite the diplomat’s having been a supporter of the prime minister, his pink slip was signed by Viktor Yushchenko. On the other hand, considering the former minister’s frequent and fruitful trips to Strasbourg and Brussels, compared to the “fruitful” relationships between Kyiv and Moscow at the time, it is safe to assume that Ukraine’s multivector policy lacked balance.
Presently, Mr. Tarasiuk has made his debut as a politician in the leadership of Reforms & Order. He considers himself a novice and refrains from ambitious comments, beyond stating his desire to be elected to Verkhovna Rada. The bloc of Reforms, Udovenko’s Rukh, and Slava Stetsko’s Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists was enriched by attracting a person with an international reputation. Also, this could help overcome the crisis of Ukraine’s Right, however conditional its split may actually be. What they badly need now is new blood, new leaders heretofore uninvolved in or with any dubious alliances. For a rookie, Mr. Tarasiuk’s views on what is happening in the Right and the country in general are anything but amateurish.
The Day: How do you feel about Ukrainian politics currently?
B. T.: Within the general European context, we have a very interesting phenomenon. Many find its realities hard to comprehend. For example, how can parliament function normally when it is impossible to distinguish between the majority and minority, with the Left minority guiding the Right majority? And that was precisely the situation before last January. There are also objective factors affecting Ukrainian politics, political elite, and the structuring of society. These factors reside in the fact that our people has for centuries lacked statehood, and active politics at the national level has existed for a decade, too short a period to form a political environment understandable to the established democracies or even to those of the former socialist camp but exited as independent states. In this sense Ukraine has been and is objectively lagging behind.
The current majority in Verkhovna Rada is a forced move for most members, not the result of a well-formed political system. The very idea of carrying out the next elections on the basis of proportional representation provides basis on which to build a majority and opposition that will be understandable throughout the democratic world. Of course, there is also a great deal of business in Ukrainian politics and very little politics in Ukrainian business.
The Day: But isn’t politics in itself business?
B. T.: Every party, if it is a serious political force supported by a serious part of the electorate and reflecting the views of a considerable segment of the citizenry, obviously has to consciously familiarize society, its potential voters, with its program of what it would do should it come to power. Of course, such a program economic activities also have their place, but one must not mistake personal business interests of individual party leaders for the economic section of a party’s platform.
The Day: Is there anything in common between Ukraine’s Right and Right-Center and their European counterparts?
B. T.: In the overall European context and in terms of platform and ideology, Reforms & Order can be described as centrist. In our national context, it belongs to the Center- Right. For example, the European People’s Party, with its 233 of 626 seats in European Parliament, includes Germany’s CDU/CSU and British Conservative Party. In other words, what in Soviet times was considered the extreme Right. Yet this alliance belongs to the Center in Europe.
It so happened historically that the political forces campaigning for Ukrainian independence were automatically referred to the Right by the political elite simply because they campaigned under slogans at the time considered revolutionary, and out of inertia they are still placed on the Right of the spectrum.
Simultaneously, in Western Europe, the Right is traditionally associated with a minus, with parties that as a rule take extremist positions that lead to serious domestic and international problems. Recall the Freedom Party in Austria.
The Day: Don’t you think that a closer look at today’s Ukrainian Right leaves one depressed?
B. T.: Yes, I do.
The Day: Why?
B. T.: Some explain this by the Ukrainian national trait that if there are two Ukrainians, you get three political parties. However, I think this explanation is an oversimplified clichО.
Today, we have two centers of unifying processes, each with different dynamics and experience. For the last weeks we have witnessed groups being formed under loud slogans, but this itself is the problem, for as long as one part of Rukh is in one group and the other in another group, the Center-Right will never unite. This will only conserve the tradition of fragmentation in Rus’.
The Day: Could one regard Batkivshchyna, part of one such alliance, as a Center-Right force?
B. T.: We are not familiar with this party’s program; it doesn’t exist. When they work out and adopt such a program at a party convention (which is being prepared, according to what I know) we will be able to consider which sector this party belongs to. Some analysts believe that its documents and actions show that Batkivshchyna does not belong with the Center- Right. And that’s not just my opinion.
The Day: Do you think that your bloc of three will eventually be joined by Batkivshchyna and other forces?
B. T.: I think it’s possible. However, we must clearly see whether or not Batkivshchyna shares the bloc’s ideology and election platform. Also, we will have to familiarize ourselves with its program documents.
The Day: Borys Soboliev, president of the First Investment Group, said in an interview with The Daylast fall that he believes NDP could turn into a Right centrist nucleus.
B. T.: It could have but didn’t. I think that the bloc of three parties and NDP potentially have a basis for cooperation within that bloc. In fact, the leaders of the bloc’s parties consider that the NDP belongs with such parties, but this already depends on what the NDP leadership wants.
The Day: You have mentioned the possibility of your name being entered in the triple bloc’s roster for the 2002 elections.
B. T.: I don’t rule out the possibility.
The Day: Could your political ambitions go farther?
B. T.: We’re talking about seats in parliament. What makes you think that my political ambitions could go any higher?
The Day: Because a politician can’t help but have ambitions. What kind of ambitions is something else.
B. T.: As a politician, I’m only a novice, and it’s too early to think of any overly ambitious goals. Considering my past, I have to admit that every professional has to be ambitious to some extent, but such ambitions must not become the driving force.
The Day: Since we have touched on the subject of morality, how do you see Ukrainian politics from this standpoint?
B. T.: Politics in contemporary Ukraine is not moral enough.
The Day: Who’s to blame: those in power, the opposition, or all of them?
B. T.: I think that here those in power can’t do anything, the more so that they themselves provide grounds for criticism. I think that here we need the common efforts of the whole society. Society has to decide whether or not a given politician and all those in power meet moral criteria. I am convinced that Ukrainian society has high moral standards. History programmed it. The trouble is, most Ukrainian people are still unable to properly influence their politicians and political parties and make them politick morally. Elections remain the only way democracy has thought up to do this.
The Day: Since you have announced your support of the new elections bill, do you also support the idea of a coalition government?
B. T.: I think that we have to adopt normal principles of forming the legislative and executive branches. Elections serve to build a majority consisting of a single party or a party coalition to participate in the formation of the government and assume responsibility.
The Day: Is our society prepared for this?
B. T.: I think so. We can refer to the experience of far less educated electorates in countries considered democracies with millions of people, most of whom are illiterate but actively take part in elections. The Ukrainian electorate is very well-educated, and forget all that talk about our people being unprepared for elections on the basis of proportional representation. I’m sure that our people know what one party or another represents and have a clear position. The only thing is that government, above all the legislature, must give them the chance. We need a law. And the executive should work out a mechanism to let the voter freely exercise his right.
The Day: A number of polls recently indicate the Left might win such elections.
B. T.: I’m sure the Left won’t get more than they already have, about 20%. After all, did the Communists and the Left in general have a majority before last January? No, unlike Russia where the Left did have a majority. But the paradox was that the Left minority directed the non-Left majority. Proportional representation will eliminate this paradox.
The problem is that the Communists seem to rely on the past and on criticizing current realities. Their electorate is mostly composed of old people who were active in Soviet times. This constituency tends not to expand but shrink. I think that the Left has no future in Ukraine.
The Day: Do you exclude the possibility of participating in the executive branch at some future time?
B. T.: No, why? I do consider this possibility. I love the title of one of Ian Fleming’s books: Never Say Never Again. I’ve been in diplomacy for 25 years. Do you think it’s easy to reject what I know and am capable of? Under certain conditions I am prepared to return to the executive branch, but the conditions have to be there first.
