A strategic-thinking Rada is needed

After 100 days of operation, high-profile votes, quarrels and mounting conflicts within the coalition, the updated Verkhovna Rada necessarily requires a diagnosis. Have the two Maidans and Russia’s aggression changed it? The overall picture is not quite hope-inspiring.

Politically speaking, Ukrainian society has been moving in the wrong direction for more than 20 years. Clans and oligarchs formed during Leonid Kuchma’s presidency have got hold of most property and power has become a tool for protecting and adding to their wealth. The entire political system has thus been corrupted. It has served the interests of big business to keep every politician, civil servant or journalist under control.

All who didn’t toe the line were persecuted, kept away from the public eye, rejected by the system, even physically destroyed. The physical assault on MP Oleksandr Yeliashkevych, the kidnapping and beating of the public figure Oleksii Podolsky, the murder of the journalist Heorhii Gongadze, are just several examples of how that system was defending itself.

At the same time, spin doctors were helping to create empty political projects and sham images of politicians that filled the information space, then monopolized by financial-industrial groups and sometimes controlled by government censorship. However, despite the efforts of those in power to keep power in their hands, Ukrainian society had been showing progress that led to the Orange Revolution, although the first Maidan lacked the determination and maturity to carry out actual changes and ended in a degree of rotation among the     Kuchma-Yanukovych oligarchs. Yanukovych tried to usurp power and change the balance between the oligarchs and relationships between the state and the people. This led to the second Maidan.

Paradoxically, protests in Ukraine taught the oligarchs to update their political projects and even use a revolution to their best advantage. Proof of this is Kuchma’s “peacekeeping” mission during the Orange events and Euromaidan, later during the talks in Minsk. The Kremlin has for a number of years worked hard to corrupt and contaminate Ukrainian politics – with Kuchma and Yanukovych looking the other way – destroying the country from within, adding fuel to the fire of the second Maidan, waiting for the right time to make its hit. It was a special operation prepared long in advance. It has cost Ukraine thousands of human lives, ruined infrastructures, and occupied territories.

The Day has repeatedly warned Ukrainian society and the most active public figures about the danger of a restored oligarchic system. Maidan couldn’t have been the peak of national creativity, as something one could only admire and feel proud of – how everything could be destroyed – and show the rest of the world, once in 10    years, that Ukraine is still alive. What we need is a Maidan every day, not out of despair or for the purpose of destruction. The fall of Yanukovych can’t be regarded as the ultimate goal in the course of the Revolution of Dignity. This goal is in implementing changes within society, demonopolizing the economy, politics, and mass media. This society needs evolution that would constantly involve the political sphere. With this in mind, The Day held a number of roundtables with public activists and young politicians during and after the Euromaidan, calling on society to get organized and form its political representation.

Today’s Verkhovna Rada, elected in complicated conditions after the revolution and in time of war, mainly comprises political projects where the key figures are old guard politicians whose property status and political modus operandi depended on the circumstances in which they formed. Of course, there are young politicians among them, former public activists who found their way to parliament on the crest of the historic wave in Ukraine, but these individuals are as yet unable to tangibly influence the decision-making process.

Below is what The Day’s experts had to say on the matter.

Oleh BEREZIUK, MP, head of the Samopomich faction:

“The Ukrainian Parliament is immature, although it does correspond to the development of society, even if this progress is too slow to our liking. Our public relations are conservative but they can change [for the better]. There are forces in parliament that are aware of public management as being the only way out. And there are forces that want to run this state the way they run their corporations – solely for their own benefit. These forces are 100/300 and are the reason behind the tensions and immaturity of this immature parliament. We each of us must be convinced that we can be far more successful if this state is publicly          – and not corporately – managed. Corporate management is good for business, but such managers do not seem to realize that this kind of management does not apply to the state, that it has devastated our country and parliament over the past 10 years.

“Today, people demand effective performance from our parliament, but it won’t perform adequately for the next five years because its very apparatus is accustomed to not reading the bills. Why did we have to adopt so many changes to the recently passed bills? Precisely because our apparatus doesn’t work, because these documents aren’t carefully read, because they are not studied by professional lawyers. An immobile limb will shrivel up, just as an inactive apparatus will become dysfunctional.

“I would describe the 2004 uprising in Ukraine as the first bourgeois revolution, when uncouth bourgeois came [to power] and proceeded to use this country as a primitive capitalist enterprise, and destroyed it. The second bloody revolution led to the understanding that this country cannot be run like a private enterprise, that the state has to regulate the relationships between these enterprises. A small degree of progress has been shown, but we’re unfortunately paying for it with blood, poverty, and social tensions. This has to be understood and accepted from the standpoint of evolution, and we must work with inspiration. On the other hand, our emotions do not allow this. Revolution means destroying the past, but destruction never leads to progress. I think Ukraine will see a new kind of revolution. We need to destroy everything which is bad and outdated.”

Oleksandr SOLONTAI, expert, Institute for Political Education:

“Our parliament represents our society today. This means that outside of parliament there are no political forces being seriously supported: the CPU, Svoboda, Right Sector, Civil Position, People’s Power, and so on. Therefore, one can’t say that it does not adequately represent all political preferences. Second, this parliament is the most pro-European one in Ukraine’s latter-day history; this happened after the Euromaidan, as a result of a revolution. It has turned from a pro-Russian into a pro-European one, and this also represents the interests of our society. Also, this parliament comprises many temporary, new, fresh-minded, and accidental individuals; it is like revolutionary spume that carries with it good and bad things. This reflects everything that’s happening within Ukrainian society.

“On the other hand, there isn’t a single political force in this parliament that found its way there using campaign funds donated by the people. Not a single party has held a fund-raising campaign or consulted with the people as to which candidate to nominate; not a single one is controlled by the people.

“At the same time, our society is not entirely paternalistic as more than 10            percent are prepared to donate to the social process. We have witnessed millions of people donate to the ATO, after paying their taxes. This means that a civil society has been born in Ukraine and it is high time a political force emerged and started functioning using money from the people, rather than media-oligarchic patronage. It should assess things from the point of view of the newly born middle class and public activity. In this sense, our parliament does not represent our society and its interests, so it has to be replaced as quickly as possible. However, last year it did reflect the actual situation within our society as it was taking its first post-revolutionary steps.

“The changes that are taking place in our society are more global than those after the Orange Revolution. Time was wasted then and some oligarchs replaced the others. Today we are witness to a different phenomenon, we’re actually building an army. Ukraine has signed the Association Agreement and is taking measures to implement it. We’re taking the first steps to reform our state. A year after the Revolution [of Dignity] our society has not fallen asleep the way it did after the Orange one. At this time no one will argue that the Euromaidan has failed.

“There are two sides of the coin of war in the east. First, it was begun to prevent us from carrying out the tasks set by the Euromaidan. On the other hand, this war will not let us become indifferent and forget the high price we have paid. That revolution was sanctified by human blood and it has a different strategic meaning. Formally, because of the war we do not see any cardinal transformations in our country, considering that we and our oligarchs are in the same boat. But as soon as the situation at the front changes, Ukraine will see global changes, and society will launch an actual offensive against the oligarchs. During the local elections a decisive step will be taken to demonopolize politics, economy, and mass media. Politicians in parliament are scared by the possibility, so they are looking for ways to use the electoral system to neutralize this possibility and prevent our society from receiving an impetus for change.”

Yevhen HOLOVAKHA, deputy head,

Institute for Social Studies, National Academy of Sciences:

“The Ukrainian Parliament reflects the status of this society in the sense that it voted for some or other political projects being in a wartime state of uncertainty. If and when the war ends, it will become clear that this parliament is a poor reflection of a peacetime society. Then it will be worth forming a new parliament made up of political forces the man in the street will understand, forces that will have the time and possibility to campaign for their ideas and development trends. At the moment it is anyone’s guess which of them is standing for what, so the main problem for our MPs is to survive. We need a Verkhovna Rada based on strategically thinking political forces that are capable of explaining to the electorate what they are actually after.

“After the Orange Revolution people were euphoric and then bitterly disillusioned. Today people are much more selective about their choice. When casting their ballots the main thing was to determine the trends of development, so they voted for the candidates who supported the same trend. As a result, this Verkhovna Rada reflects the changes in the people’s geopolitical moods, as at least two-thirds of the population have realized that their future is with Europe, something Russia has been doing its best to prevent. Politicians’ support of the European choice is clearly not enough. We need other qualities like competence, political independence, a possibility to resolve the tasks of a given party independently rather than at the expense of the rich, and of course, an ideological stand in both geopolitical and economic terms.

“If reforms continue in Ukraine the way they’re being carried out, people will demand [early] parliamentary elections. Today, the only results of our reforms are soaring consumer prices, with the heaviest burden being not on the shoulders of the wealthiest strata. Also, our bureaucracy is getting increasingly consolidated and stronger.

“At the moment I find it hard to determine the role of oligarchic clans in the wielding of power, because today, as before, politics are made backstage, with the general public catching only a distant echo of what’s going on behind closed doors and with media reports having to rely on anonymous sources. I can’t say that I have more information about those in power today than I did when they simply ignored the interests of the majority of population. For example, I don’t know where the defender of the Fatherland, Liashko, got his party funds. Nor do I know about any other parties’ funds. This is anyone’s guess. Currently all this is being attributed to the war, but afterward our society will find ways to make our politics more open.”