100 days, 100 alarms

First 100 days of Poroshenko’s presidency

We can see so far the way the people are changing, but we do not see at all the way the faulty system of power is changing

The presidency of Petro Poroshenko began on June 7. Mid-September marked the first 100 days of this process – a period that is used to measure the successes and failures of a president. Irked by Russia’s aggression, Ukraine was not just electing a president last May. The Ukrainians were electing a savior who was supposed to opt for political self-immolation in order to take decisive, albeit not always popular, measures. There was no time left for political subtleties and intrigues in May. This country was on fire, disgracefully losing territories and letting the enemy into its home. Even not always delighted with Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainians showed notable unanimity in the elections. Everybody expected Mr. Poroshenko to be free to “waste” bandits in the east once he became president. Almost nobody mentioned Crimea at the time, for everybody wanted to have the problem of rebellious Donbas solved as soon as possible. Poroshenko’s firm tread on the Verkhovna Rada’s carpet at the moment of inauguration inspired a hope. People were looking for an omen in everything, including the incident when an honor guard soldier fainted and dropped his rifle near the parliament door. “There’ll be peace,” optimists whispered to one another, while pessimists kept saying bitterly: “We’ll lose.” And there has never been a shortage of “prophets” and forecasters in this country, whenever it came to the crunch. It is typical of people, especially at a time of alarming and difficult changes, to paint reflective – sometimes even deceptive and too idealistic – images.

One way or another, Poroshenko confidently assumed the office of president, and, as many noticed, it was much more natural for him to hold a seal, rather than a mace, in his hand. A psychologist interpreted this as Poroshenko’s unwillingness to wage a war. Indeed, the first disappointment of voters after the presidential elections was the so-called “truce.” This “truce,” which lasted for 10 days, when this country watched Russia to fill the Donbas with weapons and gunmen, resembled the sad and hopeless April. In the spring, when rebels were seizing, with suspicious easiness, governmental institutions in Luhansk, Donetsk, and other eastern cities, the word “ditch” gained popularity. It is a moot point whether or not the Donbas was being ditched, but it was clear that helplessness in crucial situations became the government’s chronic disease. While in April this helplessness could be put down to the limited rights of political leaders, an army that had in fact been destroyed and demoralized during the rule of Yanukovych, the rotten security service, and the fear of provoking Putin to move in his troops on a full scale, in June the newly-elected president had sufficient leverage to resort to resolute actions. Going to the polls, the public expected decisive measures, including the imposition of martial law. The Donbas ulcer was sending the country into a fever, and it was futile to think that procrastination of the conflict would do any good.

We were doing our best to convince the world that we were peaceful. By doing so, we showed an outright fear of war which we finally received. In May and June, Luhansk, in particular, was full of the columns of Russian military hardware, which rumbled on the streets at night. People watched online the web-camera footage of APCs, tanks, trucks, and artillery pieces, whereas the military leadership was only making helpless gestures. “Show me a Russian tank and I will destroy it,” one of the top brass said, in reply to which pro-Ukrainian activists launched a half-jocular debate on social networking sites – whether or not to run after the Russian columns with a cell phone in hand. The impression was that somebody did not just want to assume responsibility and was trying to solve the problem by means of seals and signatures instead of wielding the mace. And the reincarnation of Kuchma as a negotiator with bandits cast an evil shadow on the trust in the president. As a matter of fact, they are not only trying to “seal” the woe on paper, but also want to do this with the still unwashed hands of the one who in fact doomed this country to the mess that we have today. The repeated appearance of Kuchma in the crucial moments of the first 100 days of Poroshenko’s presidency is not just a bad omen but a sign of tragedy. While the appointment of “teammates” to the key offices – from the Presidential Administration to the National Bank and the Armed Forces – can be explained and understood, the “whitewashing” of Kuchma, the legalization of bandits by way of official negotiations and, finally, the granting of “special status” to the Donbas are difficult to understand.

By way of association, Poroshenko’s diplomatic manners begin to make people draw a parallel with Gorbachev and Yushchenko – they are clever, spectacular, and can make fine speeches, but they are also irresolute, somewhat inconsistent, and soft. As a result, the old system shows mimicry and adjustment instead of being reformed. For example, the much-hyped lustration of judges has remained a nonstarter. Naturally, this association is dangerous for Poroshenko’s image, especially at the moment of another, but no less important for him, election race that leads to the parliamentary elections scheduled for October 26 after dissolution of the current Verkhovna Rada. In this aspect, his really effective tours of Mariupol and Sloviansk, his outward confidence and sagacity, will no longer be able to save the main thing – the trust of the masses. His adversaries, who are openly flaunting support from battlefield commanders, are sure to play on this. Rumors are rife that the president has “betrayed the military” and “ditched” the Donbas. Ordinary people are increasingly gaining an impression that the authorities are moldering. Moreover, some well-known political figures are pressing new names onto the lists of future parliament members – perhaps those who they will not be sorry for.

Against the backdrop of domestic troubles, such as the hryvnia’s rate, war, and others, Poroshenko is being respected and well received on the international arena. Yet the war itself and the related extremely difficult situation do not allow us to say that our foreign policy is a success, as far as assistance in the war with the aggressor is concerned. The world is dodging this war by way of sanctions that will supposedly scare Putin, while some European countries are overtly sabotaging the imposition of these sanctions. And it is not always the president’s fault. In foreign relations, Poroshenko looks effective even in such a small, but important, detail as his brilliant English. Moreover, the president signed an agreement with the EU on the 20th day of being in office. The refusal of Yanukovych to sign this agreement in fact triggered the Maidan. But, to tell the truth, this signing did not look as something crucial. The EU was no longer a matter of people’s top concern. Also noticeable is this country’s belated aspiration to join NATO – a thing that was not done when a seemingly pro-European politician Yushchenko was in power. At present, close cooperation with this military bloc is not just a pressing but a vital issue. Some notable steps have been taken in this direction – the US Congress has passed in two readings a law on granting Ukraine the status of a non-NATO ally. Should this law be finally adopted, Ukraine will be the sixth country that enjoys this special status in relations with the North Atlantic bloc.

Volodymyr PARASIUK: “The fact that Rada approved these laws in a closed regime is probably the proof that Poroshenko and his adherents decided that they can solve the conflict in the Donbas by giving a special status to the occupied territories. But, the experience proves that the Ukrainian parliament can always close, barricade themselves, move to another place to vote if anyone needs this.”

Against the backdrop of the foreign-policy steps directly associated with the Donbas war, the Minsk agreement humiliatingly nullifies gains in this direction. For the agreement was in fact signed with Russia which, obviously, will never stop its aggression – moreover, it does not want to recognize itself as a party to the conflict. Instead, agreements like this only recognize bandits as a subject of negotiations. The only useful item of this agreement is exchange of hostages.

We must admit that the president, as a politician, has now to walk between raindrops on a rope stretched under the dome. Poroshenko is a European-style diplomatic-mannered president in a war-afflicted parliamentary-presidential country. This definition means that the president’s office is not a matter of envy, and this must be taken into account whenever some of his steps are criticized. But the ordeal that has befallen Ukraine is giving this country a chance to do at last what has been postponed for many years. So far, we can see the way the people are changing, but we do not see at all the way the faulty system of power is changing. Yet the tired country is waiting precisely for this.

By Valentyn TORBA

COMMENTARIES

Volodymyr PARASIUK, sotnyk of Euromaidan, commander of the 4th company of battalion Dnipro:

“As for the support of the EU Association Agreement by Rada, it is the victory of the Ukrainian people who rose, and only later was joined by the politicians at Maidan. We are a European state, and we must become a part of the European community, we have made first big steps towards this. It is good that the politicians have finally realized this.

“As for the legitimization of the truce, the amnesties of terrorists, I would like to remind Poroshenko that Ukraine is a sovereign and independent state, and he is only a president who was elected for a five-year term. He must be realizing very well what he is doing, because if he tries to betray the lands of Ukraine in the east, this will be a fatal step in his history. Therefore Poroshenko should think how to preserve the integrity of our state and prevent people from being killed – this is why he was elected by the people.

“I am against any agreements with terrorists and Putin. After so many people were killed during the ATO, there is nothing to negotiate. We must put a historical end in our relations with Russia.

“This peaceful plan will lead to nothing. DNR and LNR won’t stick to it; neither will they agree to the ‘special status.’ Like Putin, these people need destruction and war in the Donbas, they don’t need this land.

“The fact that Rada approved these laws in a closed regime is probably the proof that Poroshenko and his adherents decided that they can solve the conflict in the Donbas by giving a special status to the occupied territories. But, the experience proves that the Ukrainian parliament can always close, barricade themselves, move to another place to vote if anyone needs this.

“However, if the power wanted to make agreements with the terrorists from the start, why did it need so many deaths of our citizens? What for were our Ukrainian servicemen dying – for negotiations with the terrorists? Human life is priceless, and it’s a pity that our president, Ukrainian and European politicians don’t understand this.”

Bacho KORCHILAVA, former press attache at the Embassy of Georgia in Ukraine:

“A hundred days is too little to assess the president, because this period is a ‘honeymoon’ of the new political establishment and people of Ukraine. Now steps are being taken to peacefully regulate the situation in the Donbas, but the near future will show whether these steps are efficient and correct. In my opinion, this is a repetition of what was going on in 1992-94 in Abkhazia. Our concession will be followed by new demands and new concessions.

“The responsibility for the taken course has not been defined by anyone.

“In terms of reforms, they want to make the prime minister responsible, but the president is as well responsible for carrying out or not carrying out the reforms. There is a ‘technical team,’ and it was agreed that the prime minister will be part of it.

“The peculiarity of the Ukrainian politics, I have noticed long time ago, is that they are blaming the neighbor for everything. ‘I would gladly do this, but the neighbor prevents me from doing this.’

“The fact that the laws on the ‘special status’ of Donbas territories and amnesty to terrorists are approved at closed sessions means that they are questionable, because the problems that refer to the future of the country and can change its course in any direction are being solved. And these problems should be discussed openly, because the agreements behind the scenes always lead to bad consequences, even if they meant good at first.

“As for the amnesty to terrorists, the same thing took place in Chechnya during the Second Chechen Campaign. But it had sense because the territory of the country was under total control of the federal army, and people were offered an opportunity not to surrender, but simply get under amnesty. Today, when the territory is under control of terrorist group, after the amnesty they stop being terrorists. And when we give a special status to these territories, it will be incorrect to define DNR-LNR as ‘terrorist organizations.’ Poroshenko’s law has many points and formulations that exclude one another and have not been thoroughly thought of. What’s more important, there is no mechanism of responsibility for the failure. In this case the president who submitted the document and the MPs who approved it are responsible. If it is followed by new conflict situations for the country, nobody is speaking about responsibility.

“We don’t know whether the president did everything for Ukraine to win the war for the Donbas, because we don’t know what the country’s resources are. Personally for me who observed the situation near Ilovaisk, it is clear that the defense minister won’t be dismissed as a result of a military failure, neither will the head of the General Headquarters be punished. People who are to blame for this have stayed and entered the party lists. Everyone achieved something in this situation, but none of them was punished. For a person who has lived through several wars, this situation seems to be strange: in every situation someone is a hero and someone is an antihero, and here everyone is a hero and antihero simultaneously, was awarded with orders and medals, and got promoted.

“If we take as an example Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, he wasn’t open in his decisions. He came out and explained to the people for a long time why he approved one or another decision. They could be contradictory, correct or incorrect. But strange events are taking place in Ukraine, and people are left in their offices following the principle, ‘we won’t surrender him, because this son of a bitch is ours,’ this is totally wrong. On the contrary, Saakashvili could punish the close member of his team for a mistake. But when the system starts to win over responsibility, there will be total irresponsibility.

“Therefore the president may have a desire to change the system, but it’s not obvious so far. Desire and reality are different things. Aki Murchiladze’s TV Mystery tells about a caste of people who live in the television: people look at them and consider this a real life, but in fact the picture greatly differs from real life. In Ukraine you have ‘TV mystery’ reforms: the real changes are scarce, and even if there are some, they are cosmetic and not systemic.

“Ukrainian politicians like to say that Saakashvili had full authority, while the reforms were being conducted. But this is the moment when a credit of trust must be given. I understand that pro-presidential forces in Ukraine will win in parliamentary elections and create the majority, and this is right. But a system of responsibility is needed. Nobody so far is undertaking responsibility and commission, just taking rights.

“Nothing of what is going on in today’s Ukrainian politics has any logical explanation.

“Therefore I would advise the president to act more. To act in terms of big changes, not be afraid of experiments, bring absolutely new people, to whom no state official will be able to say, ‘We were involved in one thing together.’ Saakashvili followed the principle that more young people should be involved, because they think differently. He should also act in terms of Donbas, because the attempts of the president to preserve his rating all the time lead to very bad consequences: you cannot be good to everyone. The rating can be earned only though actions, and the history of humankind is proof of this. So, 10 years later people will get tired of the reforms and changes, but time will come when they either recognize you, or you will take the place near losers.”

Interviewed by Ivan KAPSAMUN, Dmytro KRYVTSUN, The Day