A Private Maidan
Late last week the reprivatization process turned into a series of juicy and highly-politicized sca ndals involving thousands of workers. Media coverage has turned these conflicts into a favorite subject of kitchen and drawing-room chats. This has led to the widely held impression that it is the government rather than the weakened and demoralized opposition that is working “successfully” every day to tarnish its own reputation.
Everything can probably be explained by the coming election campaign for which the stakes are exceedingly high. After the political reform is implemented in accordance with the law that will soon come into force, the main levers of power in the country will be concentrated in the government. These levers will be provided by the Ukrainian parliament that will be elected in the spring of 2006. But who will gain the majority of seats? So far, the coalition that came to power as a result of the Orange Revolution stands the fairest chance. This is why the competition in the governmental milieu has once again reached the boiling point.
An unpublicized dispute that is incomprehensible to the ordinary taxpayer is raging over who will head the pro-governmental bloc’s list. Common sense suggests that this should be the highest-rated politician. But who would this be? It would be illegal and look like voter deception to name Viktor Yushchenko (he will not resign as president to become an MP). Yuliya Tymoshenko? The Poroshenko group, Tretiakov, and others are vehemently opposed to this, thus combining utility with pleasure, as their opponents claim. Attesting to this is the “tantrum” thrown by Mykhailo Brodsky, who has accused the president’s entourage of corruption and has now quit the Barkivshchyna party. During a television appearance he said that “Tretiakov and Poroshenko are lobbying Hryhoryshyn, and their plans to re-divide the Ukrainian market will not benefit the people — which is what Tymoshenko is fighting for, because she’s fighting to bring factories to the auction block, so that the money goes to people, not to private individuals. I won’t go to the elections with Tymoshenko if she runs with Yushchenko,” Brodsky said. (Last Friday Poroshenko’s press service issued a curt response to Brodsky).
The former Yabluko party head has revealed the heart of the intrigue: fluffy, white “Cinderella,” browbeaten by wicked oligarchs, can easily outrun the president’s political force in the elections. His entourage must be aware of this. So the problem of the Nikopol Ferroalloy Mill (NFM) has just focused a spotlight on this web of contradictions.
The promise to restore justice in privatization was made on the Maidan. Yet, last Thursday this country’s attention shifted to hitherto obscure Nikopol, to what may be called the “private Maidan,” where workers at the ferroalloy mill, which was returned to the state by court order, had been preventing the new owners from setting foot on their property. The explosive situation was televised nationwide, which may explain why the limits of civilized behavior were not exceeded. Commenting on the September 2 attempt to seize the mill, Yuriy Lohvynov, the NFM’s trade union boss, said that if the situation slips into a crisis, the workforce reserves the right to submit a pre-strike notice. “We thwarted the attempt to draw us into a conflict, we emerged victorious in a face-off, we didn’t let the Privat company people enter the mill, and today every NFM employee is proud of what we were able to do, for their mill,” he said.
Last Thursday the president of Ukraine sharply criticized the Nikopol Ferroalloy Mill situation, and instructed the Cabinet of Ministers and the State Property Fund to settle the conflict by legal means. President Yushchenko reprimanded the cabinet for failing to properly defend state interests and for using state institutions in the interests of private business (what he probably meant was that a meeting of NFM’s shareholders elected, with the help of the prime minister, some PrivatBank representatives to the mill’s governing bodies). The president’s spokesperson, Iryna Herashchenko, said that Yushchenko “had a very serious talk with the cabinet.” Ms. Herashchenko does not rule out the possibility that the Thursday meeting between the cabinet ministers and the president will be followed by the dismissal of a deputy minister. “There was no question of other dismissals,” Ms. Herashchenko said. The president also instructed the appropriate agencies to ensure that the shares regained by the state are handed over to the State Property Fund within three days. Did he also show them the legal way to do this, because it seems that governmental agencies are not aware of it?
Last Friday, while a rally attended by thousands was taking place near the mill, the prime minister held a press conference, during which she focused on the situation surrounding the NFM. She alleged that parliamentarian and businessman Viktor Pinchuk was using his government connections in his fight for the Nikopol Ferroalloy Mill. She added that the live broadcast clearly showed that people had been forcibly brought to Nikopol to create the semblance of “mass support.” “All this was just a show that Kuchma’s son-in-law (Pinchuk — Ed.) could only have organized under a very serious cover,” the prime minister noted. “I think that in a state with a strong government, a government ruled by the law, where Pinchuk has no strong “cover,” he could never have dared to do the things that were done yesterday. I think that at the moment he feels absolutely confident in Ukraine,” Ms. Tymoshenko said. She claimed that “oligarchs are still holding sway in the country” today.
Nevertheless, the prime minister remains convinced that the state will repossess the Nikopol Ferroalloy Mill in spite of the opponents’ “sniffles and moans” and that, if sold through open auction, the mill will cost more than $1 billion. She promises that “no behind-the-scenes deals will keep the government from implementing the court order.” She also recalled that the Kyiv Appeals Court has ruled that NFM’s shares are to be recorded and maintained by Slavutych Registrar. However, the prime minister should understand that even though the court appointed this company as recorder and custodian of NFM’s shares, it still does not have the desired packet and, therefore, has nothing to transfer to the state. The NFM shareholders’ meeting in Ordzhonikidze is illegitimate precisely because the State Property Fund has not received the shares from Slavutych Registrar. In reality, this mill’s shares are registered at Alpha- Invest. This is mentioned in a letter that the State Commission for Securities sent in response to a query from People’s Deputy Yuliya Chebotariova. The commission emphasizes that, under the law, Slavutych Registrar cannot be the custodian of the shares. It looks as though the prime minister is well aware of this, but she needs a scandal as much as the NFM money. The game is foolproof: either image or NFM reprivatization money for social needs (i.e., once again for the sake of image).
What is a poor voter to do?
