About a Lame Hedgehog

It is probable that, as the Constitution stipulates, the new president will be a true “guarantor of Ukraine’s state sovereignty and territorial integrity, compliance with the Ukrainian Constitution, and observance of human rights and freedoms.” Unfortunately, we also cannot rule out the possibility that he will violate all Ukrainian laws, including the Constitution, and act as another “supreme arbiter of the nation and the main symbol of the country”, as the current Presidential Administration officials used to say until recently. It is extremely difficult to predict in advance what the new President will be like – everything depends on how successful (or unsuccessful) a choice the voters will make next fall. Let us acknowledge that, at the moment, Leonid Kuchma has rather good chances to be re-elected. Yet, the fanfares heralding his expected victory sound at the very least somewhat premature.

In question here is Mykola Veresen’s article “A Hedgehog Scared by...the Opposition,” published in Zerkalo nedeli (Mirror of the Week) newspaper on October 3, 1998. I must say that I respect and like Mr. Veresen, however, his article about “the hedgehog” and “...the opposition” deserves the most scrupulous attention because it accumulates, systematizes, and rather openly presents most of the arguments put forward lately to prove the inevitability of “Kuchma’s second term,” to which our country is supposedly hopelessly doomed. Let us try to make some sense of those claims.

The principal argument that the author uses as his trump card comes down to the following: everyone who “says they are in opposition (Mr. Veresen does not deny its existence and large number) has no television, no newspapers, seemingly little money, no organization, no unity, no plans, no teams,” whereas, as Mykola Veresen claims, “if we replace almost all the have nots with haves, we will get a good picture of the President’s arsenal.” I must confess that, unlike the omniscient Mykola, I cannot judge what the opposition does or does not have because it is too diverse and numerous. The assumption that the President does indeed have all of the arsenal listed above could be a weighty and almost killing argument, provided we disregard the fact that almost all of that “arsenal” was also at the disposal of the “ultra-pro-presidential” parties running in the March parliamentary elections, and foremost of the People’s Democratic Party (NDP). Parliamentary orators claim that a substantial portion of the NDP’s 4.9% election result was contributed by such electorate categories as prisoners, soldiers (who are also behind barbed wire), and patients in psychiatric clinics. Clearly, this kind of electorate is insufficient to win a presidential election.

Of course, of all the parties loyal to the President it was not only the NDP that overcame the “barrier.” Suffice it to mention the Green Party whose leader Vitaly Kononov publicly thanked Vadym Rabinovych for assistance and cooperation (Rabinovych is considered close to Kuchma, or at least he was at the time). What is really remarkable is that virtually all parties (and also individual candidates) that ran in the elections and are in one way or another linked to the executive branch tried their best to cover up this connection from the voters, clearly aware that this kind of proximity would not win them any favor from their fellow countrymen. Let us also note the opposite effect – the Hromada party overcame the “fatal barrier” mostly due to its abuse and denigration by the very television and newspapers that Mr. Veresen calls the most important in President Kuchma’s arsenal. On the other hand, the Communist Party, after enjoying almost no pre-election coverage in the national mass media, won 25% of the votes. We leave it up to the President’s numerous “teams” to make commentaries and conclusions, especially since all of them are presumably very busy with drawing their own “charts” of victorious battles.

I have no doubt that all the “comandos” will honestly compensate the money spent on them, of which the President, as Veresen hints, has “so much.” This particular issue warrants a separate discussion. What kind of money is really meant here? Of course, it is difficult for me as a journalist to operate with large amounts of money, but, still, what sums are we talking about here? About Leonid Kuchma’s personal savings? According to his tax declaration filed in March 1997 (regrettably, the practice of publishing the President’s income declarations turned out to be very short-lived), in 1996 Kuchma’s total income amounted to 13,355 hryvnias and 31 kopecks. Even if we suppose that for financing his election campaign the President will sell his dacha in the Sphera Gardening Society of Dnipropetrovsk oblast, appraised at 15,385 hryvnias, along with its small plot of land, the amount still does not look very impressive. (Of course, it is much more than what I make, but then I am not going to run for President). We are left with one of the following two assumptions: either Mr. Veresen is alluding to some additional (and undeclared) income of the President and, displaying genuine civic courage, is trying to draw the tax bodies’ attention to this fact, or the “teams” (at least some of them) are ready to support Kuchma not only with “plans” but also with money. The latter is quite possible, if it were not for the fact that already now, one year before the election, there are all kinds of friction and even unhealthy competition among the “teams” (with respect to “unity,” by the way) – the very hustle and bustle that Veresen mentions somewhat in passing. From a purely political point of view, all of us would be somewhat curious to see how the teams will start implementing their numerous and, no doubt, brilliant strategic plans that have withstood merciless competition. I am just afraid that few people will manage to remain outside observers.

Veresen’s other arguments sound less convincing. It is difficult, for example, to agree with his statement that “this fellow” (i.e., President Kuchma) always beats “those guys” (i.e., the numerous opposition) in the area of legislation. I personally, for example, do not think of the President so badly. However, I am not a “really opposition journalist” (especially since, in Mykola’s view, the “only real opposition force we have is one woman journalist”), and therefore I am totally confident that President Kuchma would prefer to run the country (issue edicts, solve personnel issues, etc.) in full conformity with effective legislation. I have no doubt that the President would like to not violate any laws, let alone the Constitution. Yet, he is obliged to do it, and this is nothing but his most substantial loss in the legislative field. So it turns out that the last real victory of his allies in Parliament was the adoption of an extremely complicated and virtually unaccomplishable impeachment procedure – you know, just a small thing, but it makes some people happy.

Mykola Veresen goes on further to slam the opposition by putting it in simple terms, “Take a look at yourselves.” We can partly agree to this. Just like Mykola, I am sometimes amazed by some newly-appeared “opposition members.” However, I must admit that it is difficult for me to imagine how one can conclude that Kuchma will remain President based on the most critical assessment of the most dubious members of the opposition. And what is really curious is that Veresen is right saying that our people are terribly impoverished and start swearing whenever the word “politics” is mentioned, that our press cannot do without “being fed” and our television cannot survive without a presidential roof, that our entrepreneurs are not some kind of independent “oligarchs” and that their attempts to get as close to the government as possible seem almost indecent (the competition among the “teams” is good proof of that). All this is true.