The time of reforms

Early parliamentary and local elections will create the basis for a political process that will ensure sustainable peace process in Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said in a conversation with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Meanwhile, the country expects that the president will not just bring peace, but also launch radical reforms even amid war. Senior economist at investment company Dragon Capital Olena Bilan remarked: “There is no sense of inevitability of reforms in the country. Politicians talk a lot about them, but even six months after the tragic events and the change of government in Kyiv, very little has been done, and nothing at all in some areas.” “We all understand that Ukraine is currently going through its most difficult period since independence, as the country is at war. Still, it should not block radical reforms,” the renowned economist and        expert, member of the editorial board of portal VoxUkraine told the press at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center.

“When thinking about reforming your country, you should investigate the relationships between decisions and events,” Nobel Prize winner Roger Myerson advised Ukrainians and went on to analyze the rigid vertical of power that had existed under president Viktor Yanukovych. “All by itself, such a structure creates situation where permanent antagonism between regions is likely to emerge,” the professor ascertained and concluded: “The countries that have had state governance decentralized have the competition for highest offices supplemented by the local democratic competition, and candidates for national leadership are perceived as more legitimate if they can claim to be successful at the regional level when serving as mayor or provincial governor.”

“One of the results of decentralization is to provide policy makers with more opportunities to show their ability to do quality work for Ukrainians at the local level,” the Nobel Prize winner said. “Many people think that the decentralization weakens the state at first,” Myerson noted, “but this kind of reforms can actually only strengthen the country in terms of combating separatism or foreign aggression.”

“Meanwhile, locally elected leaders,” the professor argued referring to the experience of many countries, “will not allow misappropriation of a third to half of the public funding that is available to local governments, will block any attempt to spend these funds to detriment of satisfying the needs of the people, and it will also strengthen the national integrity.” “The decentralization can strengthen the political system in opposition to separatism, but it should be introduced subject to a dialog,” the researcher noted. According to him, “the Ukrainians must hear the voice of the patriots who have been already elected to local government bodies throughout Ukraine.” “Their interests,” Myerson continued, “should be included in the national dialog’s list of objectives when one plans to build a decentralized country.”

Ukraine is now seeing many discussions about necessary reforms, but they are unsystematic, another member of the editorial board of portal VoxUkraine Tymofii Mylovanov (University of Pittsburgh, US) remarked. It was not clear which of the reforms were most important and had highest priority, as well as how they related to each other, he said and explained that authorities such as Myerson were invited to Ukraine to help us make this determination, and thus elevate the discussion and make it more heated.

President of the Kyiv School of Economics Yurii Lohush is not afraid of such discussions. He stated: “Without quick reforms, the population may become dissatisfied with the government.” His proposal is: “We have to be Europeans, and it will bind together the country.” He believes that reforms’ implementation should be transferred from the hands of bureaucrats to the younger generation, and goes as far as proposing to conduct reforms outside the government. The civil service should be reconstructed so that young people would become agents of reform, the reputable school’s president believes.

“I would like to suggest that Ukraine and its leadership treat reforms as seriously as the provision of weapons and ammunition. Your people will have nothing to defend without immediate reforms,” Myerson stressed.

“Russia wants to sell the Ukrainians its idea, according to which democracy in Ukraine leads only to changes in the personal composition of the oligarchy,” Mylovanov said, “and any new elected politicians will soon become oligarchs too. If our people will accept this propaganda, they will, in fact, have nothing to defend. We will not keep our democracy and build a new country in this case.”

The Day continued discussing oligarchs informally. “I think that oligarchs’ characters and interests do not matter,” Mylovanov told The Day. “What matters are opportunities for the Ukrainians, the West, the public, and the situation in eastern Ukraine to maintain pressure on them. Should the pressure stay, they will not be able to do what they would like to do...”

“I do not believe that good politicians even exist,” Mylovanov continued. “Assume that everyone who comes to power is a bad person. What  do we do in this case? We must make sure that everything is decided through the political process. We have seen that regional parties can tear up the country, and something else is happening, as new youthful nationwide parties are created. Let them compete with each other, provided that nobody can achieve political or economic monopoly and no one is getting too much power. Even if there are two oligarchic structures that have politicians on their payrolls, but they have to compete, people will benefit from it, because they will fight for votes and need to fulfill their promises.”