“An ideal government”… for “their world”

Prime Minister Arsenii Yatseniuk has resigned, succumbing to sustained strong pressure exerted by President Petro Poroshenko and his inner circle. However, the word “pressure” is probably an exaggeration. Despite the prolonged confrontation between the president’s and the prime minister’s teams, they managed to reach compromises each time. This is how it looks like now as well. In this confrontation, the president’s people gradually increased their quota in the government and forced the prime minister’s people back. It should be said, though, that Yatseniuk managed to come out of every quarrel looking better as much as it was possible under circumstances. Now, for example, he announced his resignation after the “offshore scandal” engulfed the president, thus effectively placing the responsibility for the country entirely in the hands of Poroshenko and his inner circle, although Yatseniuk is just as responsible for the crisis.

So, Yatseniuk has left after spending more than two years in office, perhaps the most difficult years in recent history of Ukraine. What his government will be remembered for? The politician himself described its achievements, as usual: “We have defeated bureaucratic inequality, saved the Ukrainian economy from default, started large-scale structural changes and done everything we could to ensure the irreversibility of European choice. Despite the war, we have created the conditions for economic recovery.” But is it so?

“The Yatseniuk government positioned itself from the beginning as a ‘kamikaze government,’ a team on a mission to carry out unpopular measures that would allow us to move to a more efficient, fair, and successful way of conducting public affairs in general and in specific areas in the future,” Doctor of Political Science, head of the Center for Studies of the Russian Federation Maksym Rozumny commented for The Day. “This positioning was justified and therefore the Yatseniuk government initially got support not only from Ukrainians, but also from our Western partners. However, based on this logic, these moves would have to be unpopular not only with the majority of the population, which was hit by a sharp decline in incomes, increased utility tariffs and other expenses, but also with the so-called elites, the oligarchs and other recipients of rent and other inflows in our country. Here, it is open to question whether the policy of this government was balanced enough in that sense. To some extent, they did embark on efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s sovereignty and its economic independence, including by cutting on imports of Russian gas. Also, some reforms were made in the judicial system. But it is clear that the balance of the reforms’ costs was not in favor of ordinary Ukrainians.”

“Yatseniuk had enough time to enact major changes in this country and implement real reforms,” political analyst Viktoria Podhorna commented for The Day. “However, taking into account their actual superficiality, he ought to leave much earlier. Overall, it appears that Ukrainian politics is moving in circles, without changing any of its algorithms in the slightest. Yatseniuk’s resignation was the result of a political deal, even if he insists that he left of his own free will. He hopes that it will allow him to return to the political Olympus and rebuild his support at some point. This resignation also shows that the issue of the new Cabinet has been resolved, and some interesting individuals are likely to join it, with People’s Front likely to get more portfolios this time. Hroisman will obviously become prime minister. But this does not solve the problem, because all the old faces in politics will continue to operate under the old behavior algorithms, like they have already demonstrated for the past two years.”

Should the presidential scenario be implemented in full, which Poroshenko wanted to do back after the last parliamentary election, will it be better for this country even then? As the practice of recent years has demonstrated, the old system of politics is still here, placing personal and corporate interests ahead of those of the nation. Accordingly, new faces have brought little change so far. The reforms were only nominal. So, it is too early to call the end of the political crisis with Yatseniuk’s resignation. It is possible that it will deteriorate instead. Let us recall that Viktor Yanukovych was effectively in full control of the government as well.

Most likely, the parliament will formally dismiss the Yatseniuk Cabinet as soon as today and form a new coalition which will then approve a new government. Such a scenario was put forward yesterday by all the major players, including the president, Yatseniuk, and representatives of their political forces. If not today, then the issue should be definitely resolved by the end of this week.

“I think that the Tuesday vote’s result is already known, they all agreed on the candidature for prime minister, and it will be Volodymyr Hroisman,” Fatherland MP Ihor Lutsenko commented for The Day. “This will legalize the coalition that has existed for a long time. Remnants of the Party of Regions, sometimes disguised, have formed groups of MPs that help the current government to vote through its proposals. When these votes are insufficient, they turn to Regionnaires who are open about their views. The preceding Cabinet specifically involved people from the Euromaidan to somehow show the public that the renewal of government was going on. It was a fake process even then. The outgoing Cabinet put less PR efforts in this topic, because they tried to demonstrate weakened links with the Euromaidan when forming it. Meanwhile, this new Cabinet will, I think, be completely isolated from and in no way related to the Euromaidan.”

“It will not include entirely new people, but rather members of those same economic and political groups,” Rozumny agreed. “Ideally, the government team should be based on those people who professionally understand the fields which they have to govern. But these people must be independent of the collective appetites and should not be proteges of groups or individuals who distribute our collective wealth between themselves. Government officials should be dependent on the Ukrainian people through its legitimate representatives. But the mechanism of representing the interests of the Ukrainian people in the political sphere is precisely the problem. It looks like we need a technical government for this transition.”