Liudmyla DENYSOVA: “It is possible to beat the Communists in red districts”
Minister of Finance of the Crimea Liudmyla Denysova was elected to the Crimean Supreme Council on August 13, but her authority as a deputy was recognized only on November 9 after court intervention. Having won in a traditionally red district, Denysova is convinced that it is worth fighting for a breakthrough in people’s mentality. She is confident that now she would like to look into the eyes of those who claimed that she would never be a deputy and that she will find the strength and means to put in their place all those who forgot why she had been elected a deputy. When she says we, it means she is not alone.
Why have you decided to become a deputy? What are the ethical and political lessons of what has happened?
The struggle for me began at the very beginning of this year when I refused to follow the instructions of certain persons, as it now has already become known to all, to cover up the fraud connected with the organization of the so-called Crimean loan. Today Mykhailo Stepanovych Vytkov, an advisor to Leonid Ivanovych Hrach, is already wanted, a criminal case has officially started against him on the organization of this loan. After I was shamefully detained for a day, I endured all this until May 10, and then the psychological break came for the leadership of the Supreme Council. If previously there was a certain respect and some fear, after May 10 all this ended. That’s why I decided to participate in the election campaign instead of the late Deputy Blynkov. And these elections, which is characteristic, took place in Simferopol, in a so-called red political district, in which nobody had ever won except Communists.
I understood that the struggle would be very difficult and resistance would be terrible. All the same I believe that I made the right decision. We have won and after three months’ struggle against giving me a legislative mandate, the Central Election Commission made its decision. However, not on theirs but on the decision of the Simferopol Central District Court they were forced to register me as a deputy and give me the relevant certificate in the name of Ukraine.
It seems to me that during this election campaign the Communists headed by the leadership of the Supreme Council were considering their pre- election technologies. It is evident that these techniques did not prove themselves, and I think that they will change their tactics. I learned one thing from this struggle: I won due to my connections with media, with your newspaper, and with the journalists who work in the Crimea.
As I know, the Crimean Press Club was at your side.
Yes. And great courage to was needed to support Denysova and those near her. Now it is necessary not to loosen what we had already created together with the journalists: public control over the whole process. I understand the dissatisfaction of the leaders of the Supreme Council. One of them said that Denysova would never be a Deputy. Well, I’ll look him in the eye.
Does this strengthen you personal beliefs?
Certainly. I think it also strengthens the belief of those who doubt. And I think that a rift is already happening in the deputy’s corps and will become wider. People are frightened, but now there will be less who fear. All the same the break will happen. I think that I will use my arrival there to sober a certain segment of lawmakers who forgot why they came. Because it is not they who are power. Power resides with the people who put them there and whom they represent not to build huge palaces and factories for themselves to manage, but for the people to live better.
How have the people in your district taken the results of all this hubbub?
People called all the time. Wednesday is my reception day, and each Wednesday my reception hall is simply overfilled, my voters are coming and asking: what do we have to do for all this to finally end? There is a huge number of calls signed not only by Crimean Tatars. Here, they say, she has provoked the Crimean Tatars. Nobody has provoked anybody. There is, I like to would avoid calling them such, the Russian speaking population: they also addressed me constantly. The people are waiting for when the limit will finally come, when the communist noodles stop being made.
During the last session I spoke on the amendments to the budget that the Communists wanted. They forgot that they wanted to take the piece of bread from the most unprotected, the veterans of war and labor, the kopiykas that are provided in the budget for privileges. And they are putting forth the same draft in this session. If during the last session Leonid Ivanovych interrupted me so many times, now I will ask him, because now we are in the absolutely equal rights and liabilities. I will not let him treat me like this, I will find the strength and ability to reply in kind. Now the Budget Committee is meeting where my deputies back the version of amendments to the budget that the Cabinet of Ministers is going to introduce during this session. I understand that we have entered a new stage of struggle.
What is your forecast of relations between the government and parliament of the Crimea?
The top authorities of the republic, as they like to call themselves, have stopped talking about bringing down the government. The president said the right thing when he was asked, what about its falling; nobody has ever submitted me anything and I, naturally, have given nothing. But on November 7 we had a meeting and there, of course, the top authorities spoke: the government must fall. Showing that as if they are not in power, that they are the ones who are fighting for the people to live better, and the others are stuffing their pockets. It is clear to whom they refer. Suffice it to look whether this is so in reality. Look, for example, whom and how KrymavtoHaz is being lobbied, the interests of private company that has millions in debts to it partners: 60 million, and over 4 million to the state. Which concerns the forecast — I think that nobody will now risk in any way bringing down the government. I know that the deputies collected over fifty signatures to the appeal to the president that they were deciding to bring down the government under the pressure of a well-known person.
But how is it possible to pressure the majority?
Now the majority is incomprehensible: whoever has more strength. We shall see on November 15 what will be the alignment of forces. I must say that in our government also not everything is quiet. There are cadre shifts that we can also criticize, can discuss whether it is done properly or not. I think that such movement ahead will benefit the government. And time will put people in their places.
