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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Quagmire

6 March, 1999 - 00:00

Tetiana Korobova's excellent analysis of the political situation
that could lead to the end of the current government is a textbook example
of the political quagmire this country is falling into, caught between
international financial institutions demanding the government do the obvious
in order to someday have some chance of at least paying off its debts and
a Left (led among others by collective farm lord-in-chief Tkachenko) that
smells blood. The President becomes more and more isolated ("nobody is
left in the government who would work for Kuchma," says one People's Deputy),
and the maneuvering for power (and the money that comes with it, given
the way this country runs) is going full speed ahead.

Meanwhile the president of a television channel running afoul of the
reigning demimonde appeals to that same President Kuchma after going through
ten days of "unfortunate accidents," the kind that always seems to happen
to those found inconvenient by the parties with the power to make such
accidents happen. Make no mistake about it, in this country even relatively
independent journalism takes courage, more on the air than in print, for
with people so poor that many have to choose between a daily newspaper
and their daily bread, the print media just is not what it used to be,
and the authorities can afford to ignore more. But with the media in which
social discourse takes place under siege, the discourse that alone can
enable this country to pull itself up by its bootstraps simply cannot take
place.

In other words, as one song from my salad days put it, "The government
takes all the money and eats it or something/ And the rich get richer and
the poor get nothing." Meanwhile, nobody in power seems to be thinking
much about bringing the country itself out of the woods. As another old
song says, "Ain't we got fun?"

 

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