“Actions are needed to provoke a reaction”
The Prosecutor General’s Office has not reacted to Mustafa Nayyem’s declaration but the response in the social networks is the evidence of the fact that people are not indifferent to the problem of “pack voting.”
The Day has reported on informed Mustafa Nayyem’s civic action: he had written an official application to the Prosecutor General’s Office requiring to investigate the irregularities when electing Oleksandr Paseniuk to the Constitutional Court. However, it is clear that one can expect the government’s reaction only if one’s initiative is supported by the society or at least by a part of it. It has been two weeks since Nayyem published his application to the Prosecutor General’s Office at his blog. The government has not reacted yet. The Day asked Nayyem whether his action was supported by fellow journalists and how the opposition reacted to this.
You have recently written at your blog about the civic action concerning the illegal election of Oleksandr Paseniuk to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. You have also severely criticized the opposition that did not interfere. What was your colleagues’ reaction to your initiative?
“Actually, I do not keep in touch with them that much. I communicate with Olena Prytula, Yulia Mostova, Serhii Leshchenko and Oleksii Mustafin. As a rule, they do not react. Leshchenko, for example, might re-post it on his Facebook account. Someone else might ask how it is going. I do not track my colleagues’ reaction.”
How did the Ukrainian opposition react?
“Of course, many of them got offended. My post was very emotional. Some politicians wrote on my Facebook account that what I had written is wrong. However, I was shocked then. I did not intend to offend anyone, I had only one question: where was the opposition during the vote? We all understand that what they are doing is difficult; however, I think that it is not enough. Of course, there are certain politicians thinking that I work to undermine something but they can see my materials…”
And what about the Prosecutor General’s Office?
“You mean, how did they react? They did not. Neither to Paseniuk’s appointment, nor to the case of Yanukovych and Aryev [the fact that Viktor Yanukovych junior voted instead of several MPs using Volodymyr Aryev’s card when the latter was away from Ukraine. – Author]. The widest response was drawn on Facebook. The post about the opposition was re-posted by 2,000 users. It was a record for me. It also proves that the people are not indifferent to this issue. However, there has not been any reaction as yet and it seems to me that something has to happen after this. I just wonder how they will pull through. We do not write about the irregularities in our articles, we officially address them. It was clear from the very beginning that it is a sore point for the government and the Prosecutor General’s Office when the journalists react to the precedents they would like not to notice at all. In case with Paseniuk ‘nobody noticed this.’”
How will the illegal appointment of Paseniuk affect the reputation of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine?
“It matters who makes the reputation of the Constitutional Court. If we think about it we will understand that it is made by the politicians. It means that the Constitutional Court is hardly related to the ordinary people’s life. That is why the decisions of the Constitutional Court remind of reading a fantasy book for them. Taking into account that Paseniuk’s appointment was initiated by the government, the reputation of the Constitutional Court will not change for it since it is just a body that helped them to appoint the necessary person.”
Why cannot the public opinion influence the decisions made by the government in Ukraine?
“On the one hand, the public opinion does not exist. What can the society think about the corrupt government if it is used to living this way. They steal not only on the top-level but those who are inferior do it as well, everyone at their level. Of course, it is unpleasant for everybody but it does not change the point. That is why people cannot blame them angrily and fairly. On the other hand, the public opinion is not a decisive factor for the government that learnt to manipulate it and play on the contradictions of the two parts of Ukraine. It allows the government to ignore the fact of the public opinion that is instantly replaced by the concept of collective struggle of one part of Ukraine against the other one. However, we cannot change the power without changing the people. The people have to get together and understand that they have common interests and except the Ukrainian and Russian language they have to eat something. If a moment comes when it becomes vital there will be a hope that they come up with a common opinion concerning any government and will act jointly.”
COMMENTARY
Yevhen HOLOVAKHA, Assistant Director of the Institute of Sociology at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine:
“There are two factors. One of them depends on the government that considers the public opinion only when it turns into efficient forms of protest and mass protests begin. Then it influences the government through the public process. The government lends an ear only to something threatening because of its education and political culture. It should be admitted that the public opinion can have some influence only when it is consolidated. Our public opinion is very ambivalent, contradictory and not consolidated. Sometimes it is even difficult to understand what we should listen to. However, it is impossible to make people do something that is not their public duty. They can only be encouraged or not. It is clear that the government will not encourage them, why does it need one more competitive institute that would limit it in something? The other factor depends on the institutes responsible for shaping the public opinion. First of all, these are television, printed press, Internet editions and the so-called academic intellectuals and humanists. Of course, the NGOs’ leaders that position themselves as the people who represent the public interests have to be involved into this process. There is one more channel that we have to seriously fight with the state for: the educational system. We have to create the system of partnership between the teachers and pupils, professors and students so that not only the governing system develops. We should put pressure upon the government to reform our educational system and make it different from the Soviet one. Then the leaders of the public opinion and its subjects will be gradually shaped. After this the public opinion about many issues will not be so contradictory.”
