Who will be sacrificed?
Historical analogies are rarely appropriate in assessment of current events. Yet why not learn from our forefathers’ experience? What is happening today in Ukraine reminds one of what took place in Kyivan Rus’ before the Golden Horde. Feuds among the princes made it impossible to put up resistance against the merciless aggressor. For present-day Ukraine it is the world financial crisis that has identified it as a weak link. If only we could forget about our squabbles! Unfortunately, they have spilled over from politics into the financial sphere.
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko detonated another informational bomb in this sector on Thursday when she declared that the main reasons behind the plummeting hryvnia exchange rate are speculations on the part of the National Bank of Ukraine and a group of banks. Can you picture a German politician coming up with such a statement, in any circumstances, considering that it would undermine the population’s confidence in the Deutsche Bank and the national banking system? Such a politician — especially the prime minister — would rather bite off his or her tongue.
Apparently, the Ukrainian prime minister is also aware of the danger of such statements and feels obliged to offer an explanation: “The National Bank is deaf and mute; it responds to no critical remarks or recommendations.” Here Tymoshenko made a mistake because her statement may be easily interpreted as an attempt to pressure and control the country’s central bank despite its legislatively determined independence.
Tymoshenko’s version cannot fail to attract interest. But why shouldn’t the prime minister, while informing the public about outrageous facts of corruption and criminal offences, initiate criminal prosecution against the NBU leadership and her old enemies in the gas sector and do so in keeping with the legally prescribed procedure? I think that if she did, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General’s Office would have to take into account also statements about kickbacks for refinancing and information about the bank’s exorbitant profits. They would probably ignore accusations against the Presidential Secretariat because they are hard to prove. Interestingly, the prime minister does not seem to trust her own law enforcement agencies and in her ultimatum to the National Bank she threatens to ask international organizations for help.
The prime minister’s emotional outburst can be understood. Experts say that if the hryvnia exchange rate continues to drop, this may cause the Ukrainian economy collapse in the near future. Naturally, the government will be held responsible and this government does not like being held responsible now that it is elections-oriented, that is the prime minister is. Also, polls show that Ukrainian citizens do not believe that this government has a well-thought-out anti-crisis program. So now it will be blamed for everything.
Naturally, the first stone was cast by Viktor Baloha, head of the Presidential Secretariat. He accused the prime minister of making statements that may cause a panic on the Ukrainian currency market. He said that the head of state has instructed law enforcement authorities to put the Ukrainian banking system in order and added that “the prime minister, as usual, is replacing real actions with hysterical statements.” He went on to say that no one relieves the government of the responsibility for the economic and financial situation in this country, adding that the president had urged parliament to hear reports by the National Bank and the Cabinet of Ministers on Tuesday.
The National Bank of Ukraine had to join this debate that is so damaging to Ukraine’s international image. The NBU’s advantage is that it can defend itself not only verbally; it has a real capacity to influence the situation, although many wonder why it has not been done earlier. Anyway, the NBU made an intervention on the currency market on December 18 to raise the hryvnia exchange rate. On Monday it is scheduled to hold a currency exchange auction to this end.
