If neither government, nor opposition, then who?

Recently the author had a very interesting talk with a lawyer, one of the authors of the Constitution of Ukraine Viktor Musiiaka. It took place right after the speech delivered by the Minister of the Interior Vitalii Zakharchenko in parliament. As is known, there was no dialogue between the minister and the opposition – only mutual accusations, shouts, emotions, in a word, the whole situation reminded a circus show. My interlocutor absolutely agreed with me about this. According to Musiiaka, we have been living for a long while in an anti-constitutional plane: it is hard to count the times when the government approved decisions that contradicted the Constitution. “The process has gone so far that when the authors refer to their previous laws as an argument to approve of one or another decision, these references have nothing in common with the law,” Musiiaka underlines.

True, the government has long become a fetish for the Ukrainian politicians. Frequently, their main purpose is to take administrative seats and manage the country. Very few people from the higher echelons of power, who have no decisive vote, view the power as an instrument to reform the country. Moreover, the levers of power are being used for one’s personal and corporate purposes. Who or what is able to change the situation? “It is hard to tell,” Musiiaka says, “Look at today’s opposition. Does it have any ideological basis? Coming to power is what matters to them. Everyone is talking about regular or early presidential elections. What’s next? How are you going to win? Even if you win, what are you going to do? Only society can be the source of changes, and it is not very active these days. As soon as the share of critical mass grows, some improvements will probably take place.”

In the picture to this article Musiiaka’s opinion is illustrated by 100 percent. People have clearly expressed their attitude to today’s politicians from different camps. Incidentally, according to various sociological data there is a high share of people who are against everyone, haven’t made up their mind, or do not want to go to the elections at all. Nonetheless the question remains: who, if neither government, nor opposition? But before giving an answer to this question, let’s analyze why this type of thinking emerged. There are complaints about everyone.

Let’s start with the opposition on the whole. “On April 4 and 19 an actual ruination of legislative system as such took place,” political scientist Kostiantyn Matviienko commented to The Day. “The session of MPs outside the parliament proved that laws in Ukraine can be passed illegally. After the president signed four out of six bills outside the parliament, the opposition had no right to be involved in anything but bringing the law-making process back to legitimate channel. It failed to do this, so it has not right to represent us because it allows illegal passing of laws. Let’s continue. The opposition is shouting everywhere that it is fighting the bandits’ regime, but in reality it is not, this is only an imitation, a game. For example, everyone is talking now about the fight during the meeting, but nobody mentions the lack of content in the speeches of the oppositionists: ‘Freedom to Yulia!’, ‘Away with Yanukovych!’ That’s good. What’s next? So, opposition politicians only pretend to be politicians.”

Further we will analyze the parties. “Svoboda (Freedom) is the only real political party in parliament that leads in polls, has a real ideological milieu plus discipline, and is ready to help – like in the case with Nina Moskalenko,” the expert went on. “Freedom’s actions are quite right, they should be welcomed. The only thing is that they are not quite consistent. So there have never been any practical steps after the approval of the laws outside the parliament. But the main problem of Freedom is the too narrow niche of nationalism. Their standpoint regarding the shale gas, then absolutely incomprehensible is their reaction to accusations of fascism and anti-Semitism. They need to become more European – this must be a party with a more human face than it has today.”

Does Freedom understand that they are presented today as the main rival to the Party of Regions with the presidential elections in view? For according to the polls, Oleh Tiahnybok is the only politician Viktor Yanukovych can defeat if he moves to the second round of elections. Numerous technologies, including the “anti-fascist” meetings are used specifically for this aim. “I think this is the choice made by the Party of Regions,” Matviienko admits, “We can see that a street terror is unfolded today against Freedom, they are provoked to radical actions in order to create informational reasons to accuse them of fascism. This is Moscow’s technology applied by Regionnaires.”

UDAR. What minuses does it have? “The heterogeneous nature of Vitali Klitschko’s party is the greatest problem of this political force,” another political scientist Mykhailo Basarab said in his commentary, “It is consolidated around one person and this is a serious drawback of this political force, for we cannot even give a univocal answer to the question: ‘What ideology does this party profess?’ Another problem which leads from the first one is that this party unites quite a variegated public. In my opinion, it includes many political antagonists, i.e., people with different world outlooks, mental and ideological beliefs. And the third problem is that a sufficient number of representatives of well-known oligarchic groups have been noticed in UDAR.”

Kostiantyn Matviienko has a similar opinion, “This party has nothing apart from Klitschko: neither ideology, nor consistency. A fifth wheel to a cart. If Klitschko leaves big politics, this party will cease to exist; it will be dissolved between Freedom and Batkivshchyna. At the moment they try to keep Klitschko’s image up before the presidential elections, i.e., produce an impression that he is a real oppositional candidate to rival Yanukovych.”

And the greatest parliamentary faction, Batkivshchyna. “Its greatest problem is Yatseniuk,” Matviienko underlines, “he pretends to be a politician, he wants to be a politician, but he is not. Yatseniuk, Turchynov, Martynenko have other interests than those they pretend to have [For example, what is the difference between Martynenko and Tihipko? – Author]. Therefore their insincerity is only too apparent. Let’s also underline that the opposition parties have paid people to make them come to the meeting, but failed to show any decent content. Be it not for the incident with beating of journalists, this meeting would have been forgotten long ago.”

It is worth adding that before the elections The Day wrote that if the opposition wanted to win, it had to show moral strength, like forming the lists in an honest way. But they failed to do this. As a result, new party-switchers emerged. Who came instead of Serhii Vlasenko? A new party-switcher. “The main problem of Batkivshchyna is a quite high level of inside corruption,” Basarab said, “There are problems with listing people who balloted under the banners of the party. There are lots of questions. And the fact that Yulia Tymoshenko is behind bars has led to the state of turbulence in the party: it remains unclear what prospects this political force has.”

Under these circumstances in regards with the opposition, who will be able to defeat the Party of Regions? Incidentally, a few words about the power itself. “The problem of the Party of Regions is that functionaries of the party abuse their position by using their potential beyond limits, breaking any official and unofficial rules that have shaped in Ukrainian politics over the time of Ukraine’s independence,” Basarab went on. “They have absolutely different principles of administration. That is why everyone understands that the ruling party is following a wrong path – most of Ukrainian citizens, even their former voters.”

Matviienko spoke in even more rigid terms: “The Party of Regions is totally losing adequacy. Otherwise, what does it mean when head of information service of the Cabinet of Ministers states that the prime minister calls journalists to his office? Or when Lavrynovych in his commentary on the decision of the European Court concerning Tymoshenko says that Judge Kirieiev punished the accused Tymoshenko by placing her under detention? Does the minister know that there are other kinds of sanctions? A detention cannot be used as punishment. For example, there is an administrative arrest. This indicates a low qualification of the Regionnaires.”

There are also Communists, but speaking about them is making extra promotion for them. At least from Matviienko’s point of view, “These are assistants of the Party of Regions, a commercial organization, not a political party, which uses the brand of once massive international Communist movement.”

Let’s come to the alternative. Is there any? “This kind of subject emerges here and there. Those are people who in one way or another live in this country. They act, earn money, and raise their children. This understratum emerges in a natural way. Social networks are an integrator of this movement. The society is more intelligent, because the longer we live, the more intelligent we become. The society is reflecting, and politicians are no politicians anymore. People are consolidating. I won’t be able to count the intellectual clubs we have: Ukrainian Republican Club, Ukrainian Left Club, Ukrainian Conservative Club, Ukrainian Liberal Club, and Kyiv Discussion Club of Dilettantes. There are many clubs which really explore the Ukrainian society, and are not just some grant-eaters. Let’s take for example the already known movement ‘Chesno.’ We have seen that they did not react in any way to the situation with the session outside parliament. They reported that they accumulated one million dollars for their activity, but the information we received from the Regionnaires indicates that Chesno made agreements with some of the MPs. But the greatest tragedy is the  Initiative Group ‘December 1.’ It did not become the moral authority it claimed to be. ‘December 1’ practically discredited itself. Their declaration turned out to be a bubble. It does not react to the acute events, like the fact of beating the journalists. Coming back to the alternative. The healthy forces will sooner or later consolidate. There must be a center of concentration, like a big portal.”

“At the moment I can seen no alternative in any political force, however I can see it in the intellectual grounds shaped by Ukrainian moral authorities, well-known scholars, dissidents who have not been integrated into the Ukrainian politics,” Basarab expressed his opinion, “For me these are people like Myroslav Marynovych and Yaroslav Hrytsak. These are people that have a moral right to share their contemplations and criticize not only the government, but the opposition as well, people with a sufficient background, authority, and intellectual potential to form a new opposition political discourse. Not only are they unpleasant for the power, but for the opposition as well in numerous questions.”