Serhiy Holovaty on the Rukh drama and realism in politics

Serhiy Holovaty, People’s Deputy and head of the Ukrainian Legal Foundation, known to many of our readers for his consistency, biography, and deeds (suffice it to recall his resignation as Minister of Justice because of disagreement with the President’s policy). We offer his interview with The Day, concerning events in the juridical domain, the case of the Yeltsin family, and its impact on Kuchma’s family.

The Day: Mr. Holovaty, you were among the founders of Rukh. At its tenth anniversary you were not only among the honorary presidium (considering that not all of the others reached it), but also tried to analyze where this movement had moved. Your views would be interesting also because you do not belong to any of the fragments of this organization.

S. H.: I have been nonaffiliated since 1990, despite my 1989 Rukh membership. I left Rukh when I saw that it was no longer a mass political organization but had become a political party. Even then I considered that it had taken the wrong course, and I have not altered my opinion. Subsequent events proved that it was really a bad mistake. At the time Rukh accepted everybody, even people with different views, yet there was the core, its ideas of independence and democracy. Has the movement reached its goal as a mass movement? We have independence, it was proclaimed by the Communists to save their posts. On August 24, 1991, some of my colleagues and I did not happily drink vodka, dance, and sing at the Stolychny Restaurant in celebration. I was on the air on Yevdokiya Kolesnykova’s program with UT-1. The time was 11:10 p.m. and I said, “Yes, it is a joyous day, but I feel very sad. Power has been snatched from those seeking independence and democracy by those that never wanted either. It is sad, but from this date we are embarking on a long road of struggle for a genuinely independent and truly democratic Ukraine.” This road has since become even more thorny, because many of Rukh’s founding members were in a hurry to set up parties. Originally united, the Rukh leadership decided to become kinglets of parties, however small, there and then. The movement split up. Addressing them on their tenth anniversary, I said, “The division of Rukh into a lot of small parties is a great loss. Worst of all, however, is the fact that Rukh as a party has split into two parts. That was the last straw. It means the end.” I think that those Rukh leaders who made up their mind to head pocket parties with humdrum ideological programs must admit today that they did the wrong thing. It’s not too late. They must tell themselves, yes, it was the wrong step to take, a mistake. And now that Rukh is celebrating its tenth anniversary and Ukraine is still independent (let me stress that this country is still independent, but there is the threat of losing independence soon, there are certain menacing signs). While there is still time, let us find a way to get united into a new mass association of national democratic forces.

The Day: What about those menacing signs and the threat of losing independence?

S. H.: We are still to see the whole complex of objective indicators saying that’s it, you’ve lost it, but there are certain signs. The first most alarming one, so far as I am concerned, is the situation in Russia, the problem of power, its transfer; this problem is still to be solved. You know that not a single model has been approved, instead there is a wave of terror and no one knows who is behind it (there is the official version, of course, but in my opinion it is not likely); there is the background, I mean the so-called response, the new war. All this poses a great threat to Ukraine’s future, especially in the aftermath of the presidential elections. Add here the needle on which Ukraine is hooked in the energy sector and Leonid Kuchma’s repeated threats to institute a bicameral Parliament. (The Russian, Belarusian, and Kazakh model. Things done by Lucinschi in Moldova and things Kuchma wants to do, something all of his opponents do not want to see done.) These are certain signs pointing to Ukraine’s getting closer to the most horrible point, because Leonid Kuchma has no constitutional means of establishing a bicameral Parliament. If he persists with this strategy he will have to resort to unconstitutional means. To do so, he will have to get rid of the constitutional bodies of authority, primarily the constitutionally formed Parliament. However, one ought to bear in mind that he will not stop after doing away with Parliament.

As for the Yeltsin family problem and their future security currently being negotiated, all this is sending off an echo to Leonid Kuchma and his family. I don’t mean family as such, wife and daughter, I mean his family in the broad sense. Thus whether or not he remains in office is a problem reaching much deeper than understood by all those mythical Right leaders fighting the mythical Left ones or the alleged Red peril. Let me sum it all up briefly: Kuchma staying in power inevitably means the loss of Ukrainian independence. Behind his doings is that which can easily make him “surrender” Ukraine. A puppet president will still be there, along with the national flag, there will be no eastern frontiers, just as we don’t have them now. We will still have the attributes, but Ukraine won’t be independent under Leonid Kuchma if he is reelected.

The Day: What was it that created conditions for such a feudal handling of the 1999 election campaign? It is wildly different from the less than ideal one of 1994.

S. H.: Yes. And this is the result of Leonid Kuchma’s policy during the two-three years after the new Constitution was enacted. He lost the game in summer of 1996, because he wanted an altogether different Constitution. From then on he has gone on an active counteroffensive. Until 1995-96 it was a game of balance: who trips who up. But when he saw that Ukraine would not accept his Asian model, meant objectively to destroy independence and democracy, he decided to take a different road. He began using despotic methods characteristic of a police and authoritarian state, doing this with increasing frankness and impunity. He did everything possible to prevent the development of a civil society (entrepreneurship, association of businessmen, journalists, association of journalists, freedom of expression, association, assembly, etc.). Everything was directed at destroying all this. The Constitution opened the road to democracy, civil society, and liberty. Leonid Kuchma, however, went backward, toward over-regulation, enforcing control over everybody and everything (as was under the Soviets when the Communist Party and KGB controlled everybody). Kuchma asks what it was that made the Kaniv Four unite. The four are so different ideologically. But there they are, united against me, how come? Why can’t all those realizing that Kuchma in power is evil (and retaining this evil will inevitably lead to Ukraine and its democracy’s physical and political death) put two and two together and see that the time of black-and-white politics is past? The year 1989 was when Ukrainian society was divided into the Communists and anti-Communists. That period ended in 1991. Ukraine has been forming as a new polity for the past eight years, and so has Ukrainian society, now in the process of asserting its political versatility.

We are threatened on the Left by Petro Symonenko and his policy of back to the USSR. We are threatened on the Right by the oligarchs led by Leonid Kuchma. Why can’t we build a coalition, if only to save Ukraine, one free of all those not wanting an independent and democratic Ukraine?

The Day: And then will everyone fly back to perch on their party branches? Incidentally, analysts predict that the Kaniv Four’s candidate will not only become President, but also initiate a normal two-party system.

S. H.: I am surprised that other presidential candidates have not joined the Kaniv Four, I mean those representing the so-called Right. None of them seems to have grasped the idea that they will score a zero in politics if they proceed on their Bolshevik black-and-white course, rather than the European one. The main purpose of the Left and Right centers is getting a majority in Parliament (even in this one!) through a coalition. I mean that very majority about which the President constantly complains and which he just can’t have. He can’t because no majority can form and rally round a man like Kuchma. There is only one correct path, which is true of not only the current but also the 2002 parliamentary campaign: a coalition majority in Parliament, that very majority under which a coalition government will form to conduct a uniform national policy on behalf of Parliament and the government. Today, not a single party in Ukraine can get a majority in Parliament. I know Leonid Kuchma’s personal business qualities, his intellectual level, his psychological and emotional status; I also know other things, private and otherwise. What is important for Ukraine today is not even a candidate’s ideological orientation. What liberalization of the economy or reforms can there be, considering that 95% of the populace is below the poverty line? This society is in such a condition that there is no greater priority or problem more urgent than social justice. How can that lesser evil face all those hungry and robbed people after using the idea of reform for its own personal enrichment?

The Kaniv Four is just the beginning. And it is very good that for the first time in the eight years of independence our leading politicians are demonstrating an ability to unite, to find a golden mean. Unlike the President’s policy constantly aimed at exacerbating the situation, pouring more fuel on the fire of animosity and confrontation, waging a permanent war against Parliament — in other words, against his own people — the Left and Right centrists are showing the ability to combine efforts in order to reach the strategic goals of independent Ukraine, democracy, and the people’s welfare.

The Day: How would you explain the fact that, while proclaiming Vitrenko and Symonenko his number one adversaries, the actual hostilities are directed against Marchuk and Moroz?

S. H.: This is only natural. There is no bigger threat to Kuchma than the combined efforts of these four politicians and that part of society which is supporting them. I am convinced that one of the four will become our next President. I believe moreover that this will be a European course for Ukraine, because it is really European, joining a coalition for the sake of one’s country and people. The four together represent the majority of the electorate, its views, aspirations, and expectations. Kuchma’s model is everything Asiatically backward.

The Day: Which of the veteran Rukh adherents are capable of soberly assessing the situation?

S. H.: There are considerably more people in Ukraine that are Rukh members at heart than there are members of the party’s two splinters, among them Stepan Khmara, Volodymyr Yavorivsky, Ivan Drach, Dmytro Pavlychko, Slava Stetsko, Vyacheslav Briukhovetsky, and Myroslav Popovych; there are also many who are outside of both. Thus, the essence of Rukh, as a late 1989 phenomenon, is still to be brought to life.

The Day: Would you say that, just as many rank-and-file Communists will not vote for Symonenko, many rank-and-file Rukh members will not vote for Udovenko and Kostenko?

S. H.: Absolutely. This is a road that leads nowhere, because none of these candidates stands a chance in this campaign. If only we could say today that Rukh means a constituency twice that of the Communists. We can’t, so objectively we must cast our ballots for that single representative of the coalition to be determined by the Kaniv Four. And this coalition will inevitably result in a parliamentary one which, in turn, will form a coalition government. Unless all those genuinely concerned about Ukraine combine their efforts by forming a coalition, we will never drag Ukrainian out of its abyss. All the rest is either romanticism or provincialism in doing ones job, even if subconsciously, for the benefit of whomever pays for the music.

The Day: Has somebody put out a contract on Ukraine?

S. H.: Yes.