Among The Day’s recent guests was Dmytro Tabachnyk, former Head of the Presidential Administration. Previously he called to say that what some of what journalists write about him is outdated. An interview was arranged and he began by showing the President’s edict dismissing him for transfer to a permanent job in Parliament.
Q: You are quitting the Administration for the second time. Why did you come back after the first?
A: I spent nine months in retirement and I could say everything I thought, although I was repeatedly asked to hold my emotions in check. After I got off my chest everything I had there I was invited to the Presidential Administration again. It was some time before I agreed.
Q: Considering that you vied in the elections, your return to the Administration was not totally successful, or was it? What did you do as an aide?
A: At first I thought that the President had an interesting job for me. A kind of social assignment: I was to try to develop an effective conception of cooperation between the President’s entourage and the media, primarily television. I was given very extensive authority, like a number one PR man responsible for all top level information. My work was such that the President and many of his associates had to curb their ambitions and surrender some of their spheres of influence. They never did, and I realized that nothing had changed or ever would. My work made no sense.
Q: Picture a headline: “President Refuses to Place Tabachnyk in Charge of Public Information in Ukraine” followed by a public ovation and shouts “Well done, Mr. President!” What do you think?
A: At one stage of the elections I thought it was worth trying to do what other CIS and European countries did, create a single coalition involving the media to prevent the Red revenge. This coalition shouldn’t be headed by the President or another noted figure. It had to be something like an agreement on the rules of a socially advantageous game.
Q: You mean this coalition would be designed to stop the Reds from coming to power?
A: Well, I wouldn’t put it that bluntly. Let’s say this coalition would be a serious obstacle. As it was, lack of coordination with the media bungled the campaign against Hromada. Also, I wouldn’t describe Ukraine as taking a left turn, all of it. Parliament did it by squatting, if you know what I mean. In this sense, yes, one can talk about Ukraine becoming leftist. On the other hand, most transgressions of journalist ethics came from the presidentially controlled media. Particularly one celebrated paper, Nezavisimost (Independence). One cannot consider Parliament and the nation going leftist separately. The Communists got 17% in Kyiv, a significant result. A more incompetent political campaign would be hard to imagine. Take the Agrarian Party. Here two persons were responsible for party rosters: Yevhen Kushnariov and Oleksandr Razumkov. A dozen or so parties appeared that no political analyst or journalist could tell apart: PRVU, NEVU, Razom (Together) Bloc, SLON, NEP... A bloc of five parties that took 7% together. None of them got into Parliament. I will not quote from classified files, but I can tell you that many parties were actively prevented from uniting. Each wanted to have his own party, so he could then come and say, “See, I did it. I got this many votes.”
Q: Talking of small parties, how did you personally get to join LPU?
A: Well, I’ve never kept it secret and spoke about it during my 160 meetings with the electorate. I have always considered the liberal and democratic ideas as two predominant concepts in any civilized society. That’s number one. Number two: I openly favor Volodymyr Shcherban. I think that he made a very good governor and showed a very good performance in the agrarian sector, especially in the retail and service sectors. Under him the oblast, being placed 22nd to 25th, rose to third and fourth places by a number of indicators. Finally and most pragmatically, I think that, given Hromada as a heavyweight political body of Dnipropetrovsk oblast industrial and financial capital which is gaining momentum, a counterbalance had to be created in another economically powerful region, Donbas, so as not to upset the boat (I mean Ukraine). At the time this could be achieved quickly and effectively using those already in the limelight, politically and economically rooted in that coal basin and holding important government posts. Instead, the Donbas was torn between Zviahilsky, Shcherban, Rybak, and Azarov, resulting in an almost total victory of the Communists in the majority constituencies, to the accompaniment of stupid instructions and incompetent management.
Q: Would you admit that you were wrong considering Leonid Kuchma the right man to work for? Also, how would you assess the President today and your own role in the tragic situation that has developed in Ukraine?
A: Without false modesty I think that I have played a most important role in his presidency. Another thing is that every individual is bound to change over time. He changed from 1994 to 1996 and continued changing into 1998. Talking of a person at any given period, one must bear in mind his dynamics, whether he is gaining or losing momentum, and this, of course, applies to the President of Ukraine.
Q: Which do we see today, gaining or losing momentum?
A: Let me finish, OK? After ups and downs, climbs and descents, comes a sort of plateau, a stable political and physical form. This applies to any individual, not just the President. I can tell you that electing Leonid Kuchma in place of Leonid Kravchuk in 1994 was a perfectly correct, circumspect political move.
Q: Do you think that this man could (a) bury all the other candidates along with Parliament?
A: No, I don’t think so.
Q: All right. (b) Do you think that he could bury only the unwelcome ones like Oleksandr Moroz, Yevhen Marchuk, or Viktor Yushchenko?
A: How do you mean bury?
Q: Using all means to cut off these candidates, prevent them...
A: You know as well as I do that this will never happen.
Q: At one time you were identified as the Presidential Administration’s ideologue. At that time everyone knew who was the whipping boy. You can tell us if it was really so. Now we are all perplexed by what’s happening in cadre policy, including the SBU and nuclear power industry reforms. Who’s behind all this? Who feeds the ideas and should be held responsible among the President’s entourage? There are so many power centers they are disorienting society. So who is it?
A: All these centers are best described as being in Brownian motion. It is hard to tell who is responsible for what, let alone predict their next move. In 1996 we discussed the possibility of reorganizing the Presidential Administration, splitting it up. I told them it was crazy. They wanted to set up several power centers and information channels to keep the President up to date, all within the PA framework. There are many such information channels, but I told them time and again that they should be restructured. We have SBU, Interior and Statistics Ministries, PA, National Security and Defense Council, Finance Ministry. All these are information channels where people are responsible for the data they provide and concepts they develop. Now splitting the Administration into 5-6 bureaucratic groups and forming 4-5 information channels within the same framework would enviably lead to chaos.
Q: Who makes cadre decisions acceptable to the President now?
A: Whoever runs to the President’s office first.
Q: Who did Mr. Kuchma consult before nominating Berezovsky?
A: Formally, relationships between Russia and NSDC are Mr. Razumkov’s prerogative and the man stresses his exclusive role where and whenever he can. At the Foreign Ministry it is up to Minister Borys Tarasiuk, and at the Cabinet it should be Valery Pustovoitenko. I don’t know who the President talked to exactly.
Q: What about the new Parliament? Who will make a deal with who and who will get the upper hand?
A: Hard to say at the moment. Too many options are possible. There are a lot of economically independent people in this Parliament, so it will act more independently and pragmatically in many respects. Between 150 and 200 Deputies need no handouts. On the other hand, heavy hitter businessmen are the easiest to get to steer a middle course, so lobbying lucrative projects will also be easy. Also, this Parliament promises to be better structured.
Q: Do you think that the President and government comprise a single force?
A: More than not.
Q: How do you picture Pustovoitenko’s future and that of the Cabinet?
A: I could venture an answer only after a Speaker is elected.
Q: And what do you as a People’s Deputy think?
A: I think that a leftist Parliament will bring forth a new government which it will support. Given this support, Mr. Pustovoitenko’s position would be enhanced and he would feel greatly encouraged.
Q: Does he stand a chance?
A: In politics there is always a chance. In theory.
Q: Do you agree that the new Speaker will eventually become President?
A: I don’t think that the two notions are absolutely identical. It’s just that the Speaker will stand a better chance, having the machinery, so to speak, local councils, and access to information. Yet this does not predetermine his electoral victory. Only one of the candidates will be able to take full advantage of the Speakership, largely due to his political longevity. A man heading parliament twice turns out the strongest presidential contender.
Q: Do you think that 52% of the populace not trusting the President means impeachment, despite the absence of the procedural vehicle?
A: I think that this 52% stems from the economic situation and people’s hard living conditions.
Q: You mean they just don’t notice how things are getting better? The President said that there positive shifts and only the blind wouldn’t notice them...
A: There are positive trends in the political domain. Perhaps they are not irreversible as yet. Well, we had the elections, didn’t we? And we have an independent press. Academician Shalimov, a brilliant Ukrainian surgeon, has opened his own clinic and set up an institute. He was perhaps the best surgeon in Ukraine and the rest of the USSR. As his school grew and developed he reached 80 years of age. Now he is no longer the best surgeon, but his clinic continues to grow. Would you say that his getting worse professionally in any way reflects the worsening of treatment at his clinic?
Q: In other words, the President created a mechanism and even his own degradation will not affect the country’s progress. Is that what you mean?
A: If what you are driving at is that Ukraine’s political life has degraded over the past four years, I say no. It has not.
Q: And the President?
A: The President has changed.
Q: Is there anything that could help him become President again?
A: Two components: objective and subjective. Serious headway in the economy and shaping a new team, at least like the one that raised Yeltsin’s rating from 8% popularity and almost 60% of no confidence to victory in June 1996. This is evidence contradicting your assumption that 52% of no confidence rules out the possibility of reelection.
Q: Would you campaign for Leonid Kuchma again?
A: This would depend on only one thing: who runs against him. If we were to choose between Kuchma and Moroz, I would campaign again.
Q: Let’s try to picture a situation — say, you’re asleep and dreaming — in which you are indeed faced with this choice. Kuchma or Moroz. And the result depends not only on your vote. And then you have a visitor. Oleksandr Moroz. He says he will agree to private land ownership, economic reforms, the works. What would you do?
A: I would turn over in bed and try dream something else.
Q: In 1992 you called Chornovil a genius of destruction. Who do you think rates this title today?
A: Considering the intellectual level of decisions submitted for the President’s approval, I would say it is Oleksandr Razumkov, and from the standpoint of Parliament’s “creativeness” I would say Natalia Vitrenko.
Q: How did the President respond to Deputy Karpov’s anecdote about Leonid Kuchma working as President for Dmytro Tabachnyk’s Administration?
A: He did not like it and called Karpov on the carpet for it.
Q: Wouldn’t he think that such stories were prompted by your conduct?
A: He said nothing to indicate it.
Photo by Volodymyr Rasner, The Day







