THE FIGHT GOES ON

The former reminds one of a family quarrel starting with something like «Why don’t you go dump the garbage in the can?» «Because I don’t want to.» The Chief Executive and Parliament seem to enjoy using the same pretext to clash again and again. Which means it is time to send for a head-shrinker

The latter is a bit curious. The President addressed the nation, saying that an anonymous man, middle-aged, slightly over medium height, wearing rectangular tinted glasses, born in Dnipropetrovsk, had stolen so much money from the country that the state is now faced with heavy internal and external debts. Naturally, one could ask the Chief Executive where he had been while all this was happening. Why he had spent half a year telling everybody what a bad Premier he had, instead of retiring him, there and then. There is an even more interesting point, however. Interpreted by the President, the ignominious efforts of the «anonymous man» Lazarenko acquire an epic (even Rabelaisian) coloration. In this country, where stealing from the state is not a sin but a generally accepted way of life, this malefactor Lazarenko may well become a folk hero. But perhaps the idea is different: what if «Hromada» ratings drop suddenly, out of dark envy?

Unlike the Ukrainian President, the West is still undecided, thus living up to the good old Soviet propaganda image of «stagnation and decay.» What is there to prevent them from blowing Saddam Hussein out of his lair or at least throwing Ukraine out of the Council of Europe for not complying with any of its requirements? Even the alarming statement made by the State Department’s special envoy Steve Sistanowicz to the effect that Congress may reduce their annual aid to Ukraine if the conditions in which foreign (particularly US) companies have to operate here, does not seem to have caused any serious concern in official Kyiv. The general attitude there could be summed up like, «You’re just bullying. You will continue paying no matter what, because of Ukraine’s so very convenient geographical position, and because Ukraine has such a good northern neighbor.»

The Central Elections Committee and Ministry of Justice have finally paid heed to the sonorous demands that things be put in order and anarchy ended, presenting their view of the problems facing the self-government authorities in Kyiv and Sevastopol. Even if having no legal status, this view clearly testifies that the results of electing mayors in these cities my well be ignored by the executive, resulting in yet another political and legal Gordian knot. The only logical solution to this problem would be if each newly elected mayor were appointed Presidential Representative in that city. True, this would cause another serious problem: delimitation of powers between this representative and the local state administration, but this would be within constitutional jurisdiction where such «specificities» are provided for. Very likely, the state administrations are scared by precisely this possibility; while being reasonably sure that their candidates would not be elected, not in Kyiv, they would not be able to handle anyone else without reckoning with his status. The simple truth is that Ukrainian politics are determined by personal relationships and almost never by any laws.