Leonid Kuchma cannot report on his action program

PROBING ACTION

World experience shows that people live prosperously and happily only where citizens are free to elect their government using fair democratic procedures. What about today's Ukraine?

Let us refer ourselves to the findings of a monitoring team of four members of the National Television and Radio Council elected by Verkhovna Rada. Note that the President persists in not appointing his four members of the Council, which is against the law and a result of which what happens on the air is controlled not by the National Council acting under the law but by media oligarchs acting under the President's patronage.

And so their findings testify: over the period from August 18 to September 21, presidential candidate Leonid Kuchma was mentioned 185 times in the news on the three major channels UT-1, UT-2, and UT-3, of which only one (!) reference was negative. Put together, nine other candidates appeared 100 times, including 71 negative references.

In advertising Leonid Kuchma the elections law was transgressed 103 times and the CEC regulations 79 times. The Central Election Committee, having scrutinized millions of lists of signatures, conspicuously fails to notice something witnessed by the entire nation, namely the number one candidate's television coverage.

However, these glaring statistics and the CEC's outrageous passivity fade compared to the content of television programs themselves. Watching them, one can only wonder what prevails there: fawning on one or scorning all the other presidential candidates. It seems that medieval court traditions have been revived, and bootlickers have come into vogue.

There is a month left until the election but the didoes UT-1 editors feel free to pull off are what the military call a probing action, meaning that the battle is ahead. And UT-2 with their 1+1 and UT-3 with their Inter are all in the cast of characters, except that their roles are somewhat different. While UT-1 openly brainwashes the common folk, the other channels are busy marketing Leonid Kuchma to more exacting audiences.

Eulogies sung to Leonid Kuchma (184 features) and programs denouncing his political rivals (71) are just one of the brainwashing campaign's trends. Another consists in producing the effect of the Chief Executive's presence and, by contrast, the absence of his contenders. There is a long series, a tale on best titled as “The Hardworking Man and the Lazybones.” Also, the idea that whether one votes for or against him, he will be reelected is gradually being implanted in people's minds.

And the third reason for one candidate being omnipresent on the air is adjusting all the campaign debates to that candidate's standard; anything that does not fit in is discarded as a matter of course.

In 1990, intellectual Volodymyr Hryniov ran for parliamentary Speaker. Practically standing no chance, he explained his campaign by a desire to “raise the standard” (and the outcome was sad — Ed. ). What he meant was the Speaker's moral, intellectual, and political standard, enhancing his responsibility before the citizenry, society, and the state. Leonid Kuchma's team has an altogether different goal in mind, determined to lower this standard, adjusting it to their candidate. Let him say a couple of words or cut the ribbon or dance or sing or just pass wordlessly by. And they have no need for the smart people.

However, the important thing is not that about which all these channels keep babbling but that about which they keep silent.

BALLAD ON LAST YEAR'S SNOW

Once I watched a couple of fellows fixing a fence as a passer-by approached and said, “This winter will be warm and last year it was very cold, there was so much snow.” To which one of the workers replied, “Hey, why don't you move on and mind your own business?”

The other added haphazardly, “And last year's winter was cold, but there was little snow.” This caused further comment, and they were still talking when I left. When I came back they were still talking, work forgotten.

Leonid Kuchma's canvassers act in similarly. Much ado about nothing in particular, and not a word about the business at hand. Who is the real centrist and who is simply posing as one? What kind of Parliament should we have, bicameral or six-room? They will happily discuss last year's snow only to avoid any serious subject. Like why do we live in such misery? Where are we headed? Who has led us into this labyrinth? Where is the way out?

We will discuss the wrong objectives put forth by the Kuchma team another time, but first things first. The condition of the Ukrainian state after five years of Leonid Kuchma's presidency is best described using one word: bankruptcy.

As of September 1, 1999, back wages and salaries came to UAH 7.1 billion; back pensions, UAH 2.8 billion; back stipends (as of August 1), UAH 88 million. And this in the heat of the presidential campaign! Attempts are made to pay some of these debts using goods and money taken from budget items meant for other purposes. After the elections this practice will make itself felt by means of fresh debts.

The trouble is not only that these debts are staggering, but also that there are liabilities long overdue. And this is only part of the gruesome picture (internal debt: (UAH 15.5 billion; foreign debt: $12.4 billion). Put together, this outstrips GDP 1.9 times. Once again, all these debts ought to have been paid long ago, even though there is virtually nothing left with which to pay them. This and the mind- boggling amount of the UAH 132 billion frozen at the Savings Bank is enough to diagnose Ukraine's condition: the state is bankrupt.

The President cannot stand hearing all this, so he banned television and radio broadcast of Verkhovna Rada's Government Day with a very eloquent agenda:

“1. Information on the government's activities in paying back wages, salaries, and pensions.

“2. Information from the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on Ukraine's internal and foreign debts.”

The law requires live coverage of the Government Day, whether or not other legislative sessions are covered. Yet the President is careful to keep his people undisturbed. Indeed, why worry about some back wages, pensions, and stipends? Why not discuss centrism instead?

Bankruptcy is not the result of a subversive aliens' mission from outer space but the inevitable result of the development (rather degradation) of the national economy under the President's patronage. In 1998 alone. GDP dropped by another UAH 103.9 billion (1.7%); production by 1.5%; over half of all enterprises were in the red and almost 50% of their products were sold through barter.

As the statistics add up, the result becomes glaringly obvious: economic statistics under President Kuchma are a requiem for the Ukrainian economy.

Another consequence is the life span bringing Ukraine down to the world's 120th place; in 1994-98, the Ukrainian population decreased by two million, from 52.1 to 50.1 million, with another 200,000 leaving the country in the first half of this year. This is a requiem not for machines and equipment, but for all of us, dear fellow Ukrainians!

The President is supposed to report on his progress, but he hates the idea, so the media oligarchs were instructed to substitute the notion of a progress report by that of a campaign speech.

There is a point here for there are 14 presidential candidates, for they have never been at the summit of political power. But this is not so for the fifteenth, for he intends to be reelected. This would seem to give reason to ask him first about his previous program.

Suppose he says that it failed. There are a number of versions which can be cited:

* integration with Russia and the official status of the Russian language somehow faded away;

* the industries (the key promises of the managers' leader) are not prospering, mildly speaking;

* the country is swept under the tidal way of corruption and organized crime, with law-abiding citizens crushed by poverty and lawlessness.

In a word, one can't win for losing. Naturally, if he said so his reelection would be out of the question, but one could still understand him. Well, he made a lot of promises and could not carry them out. He turned out not up to the job. Such things happen.

Now let us assume that he chooses the worst possible tactic and assures us that his program has been implemented. The implication would obvious: all the horrifying results of the five years of presidency were planned and programmed by him back in 1994. Some program!

There is another option: after the elections the President and his near and dear ones will have ample time to think things over, made welcome to chose whichever answers they please.

As for us, on October 31 we will elect another President.