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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

WEEKLY ROUNDUP 

6 October, 1998 - 00:00

Without doubt, the most scandalous event of last week was the visit
of Russian Duma Speaker Gennadiy Selezniov.  When the stir had subsided
and all commentaries have been published, I was suddenly able to word for
myself the feeling that I could not abandon throughout this story. 
It all looked like a training alarm in the army, and in our case, the inspector
should be happy:  everyone knows their maneuver - the right people
stamp their feet and the right ones put their hands together in applause. 
In my view, the only realistic lesson of the scandal is the fact that we
are still very much psychologically dependent on Russia.

Late last week, the President was unusually active.  He made a
number of statements that are quite difficult to understand.  For
example, what could the phrase "we will not follow the Bulgarian way, we
will choose a tougher option" mean?  Should we assume that instead
of socialists (the way it was in Bulgaria), some kind of a Progressive
Socialist Party of Ukraine will come to power?  Besides, in a friendly
way,  the President shared with us the Administration plans, saying
that there will be "about a hundred people" willing to replace him in his
post.  Clearly, the larger the competition, the fewer are the candidates'
chances.  At any rate, the game of splitting all possible political
forces has become obvious - the Peasant Party left  the Left Center
faction (in a scandalous way, too); the United Social-Democratic Party 
became a separated one last Saturday; there is rumor about plans of new
and new presidential candidates, and so forth.

However, all those manuevers are unfolding outside the "legal field,"
since the law on presidential elections has not been adopted yet. 
This law can seriously affect the list of candidates, their number, quality,
etc.  For instance, one of the drafts proposes an age limit of 60
years (some wits are suggesting 61 years and two months), and its adoption
will certainly rid us of many worries.  One thing we can say for sure
is that shortly the law on presidential elections will become as hot a
political issue as was the law on parliamentary elections a while ago.

Some clarity was brought into the events by representatives of foreign
banks, who said that our crisis, as it turns out, should be called Latin
American rather than global, Asian, or Russian.  I have always known
that the most important thing is to know what to cure.  However, there
is something enigmatic in our chart of sickness - I could never understand
what kind of monetary policy we can talk about in a country that does not
have free pricing.  After all, according to all economic laws, the
prices should be going down under the current circumstances.

 

 

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