Since February 2014, Ukraine is on the way of reforms. Arseniy Yatseniuk-led Government has developed the most recent Government Programme in 2016; it was adopted by the Parliament in February 2016. But people in the streets still assert that they feel no changes. Moreover, in some cases, they assess the situation as even seemingly worse than in 2010-2014 President Yanukovych times. How did it happen?
1. Manipulation
Since the inception of the modern mass-media capable of shaping the public opinion and advent to power of pure populist politicians, which applies to the Soviet Union of the 1950s and later, communist governments effectively abused non-awareness of the Soviet citizen creating a parallel reality. In that virtual world any news reports were transformed as capitalist world encroachment on peaceful communist states all over the planet. To boost morale and to make newspaper headlines, party leaders promised to start the final battle against the imperial USA in a short time. They say, that once foreign diplomats reacted to such a speech addressed to the distant factory workers. The answer was shocking: one should differentiate internal speeches motivating the locals and milder official statements made for abroad. You see, stiffening the spirit of the hungry workers on a daily basis is not that easy.
The huge truth of 2016 Ukraine is that its political leaders are still creatures of the communist party schools. They play roles of oligarchs, greedy capitalists, educated abroad reformers, liberals, democrats. Yet instead of making money and implementing transparent rules of the game to make even more money, they work hard to keep things undercover and to root themselves on stat money flows. In Soviet times they would be called apparatchiks or nomenclature, and such set of actions would be characterised as blat; in modern democratic Ukraine this is to be defined as corruption, favouritism, nepotism and even state capture.
Anyway, most of Ukrainians live in the imaginary world being manipulated by the rich and powerful according to the proven Soviet KGB legacy standards. Still, Ukrainians can console themselves by the fact that Russians are even in worse situation: while manipulation in Ukraine is mostly limited to information causes creation, wrongful event misinterpretation and fact suppression, Russia resorts constantly to creation of the news to keep totalitarian regime operational.
2. Misapprehension
When Ukraine declared its Independence on August 24, 1991, and its people confirmed this decision on December 1, 1991, there was no private property in the state. Companies and land were state-owned and cooperative societies were the most advanced form of business. The conception of the 1990s privatisation of non-strategic companies appeared to be fair and even, at least at first sight. But due to de facto police dissociation from active actions, law system inoperativeness, financial collapse, lack of business management experience, sales market disintegration and pressure from criminal groups then workers-owned companies usually went bankrupt in a month or so. Besides, as monthly salaries dropped to $4-5, people were eager to sell their company shares for a cost of a bun.
As populist Parliament where communists comprised the largest faction for a long time continued to churn out laws preventing free market introduction, the economy stagnated until 2000-2001 Viktor Yuschenko government’s rule which became a turning point in the economic history of Ukraine as barter trade was banned, GDP showed steady growth and other signs of recovery became apparent. But even then populism prevailed as shock reforms were rejected in order to try to secure victory at the 2002 Parliament elections and 2004 President elections.
One cannot define a date of communist-to-democratic or planned-to-market transition in Ukraine. It still continues as even in 2016 enormous number of outdated Soviet-time laws and decrees are currently in force. Such state of affairs led to state money losses, ineffective management, long-term planning impossibility – and economic instability in general. Considering manipulation and misapprehension, the result was that mass-media market was not regulated properly. Until the mid-1990s the First channel of the Russian Television was broadcasted free-to-air all over Ukraine. Numerous state-owned newspapers became bulletins of the local government bosses. Until 2000 up less than 10 private TV-channels broadcast in Ukraine; yet there were multiple local TV-channels and independent production studios. Unfortunately, unable to gain any profit they seized to exist one by one. As the youth was inert at the elections, and the communist government drummed into the heads of the elderly that TV always tells the truth, political commercial proved to be highly effective. Soon it became highly expensive; in 2002, it became simply unavailable to the political opposition due to the administrative pressure on the TV-channels by 1994-2004 President Leonid Kuchma’s administration. Learning that, then-emerged Ukrainian oligarchs started concentrating media assets to be able to influence the population, or as it is derogatively called in the Ukrainian political context – the electorate. Since the mid-2000s, it became impossible to be mentioned or to be invited to the studio without being approved of. As of 2016, each TV-channel openly serves needs of a certain oligarch and his/her business group. Paid-for stories are used to form public opinion and are called derogatively ‘jeansa’ (pronounced as gin-sA) at least since the 2000s.
As the government lacks funding for promoting its activities, the oligarchs easily bury its initiatives if they are found unfavourable for them. It is usually done it the most vulgar and crude way, which brought in widely recognised comparison of the Ukrainian journalists to prostitutes. Considering these risks, the government has to cooperate with oligarchs in order to avoid negative media coverage. So, every decision is a stiff undercover compromise. Moreover, if governments of the 1990s were characterised as representing some regional political influence group (e.g. Dnipropetrovsk), at the time of Viktor Yanukovych-led Party of Regions rule in 2002-2004, 2006-2007, 2010-2014 a shift took place, and association transferred from regional to personal as the oligarch behind it – Rinat Akhmetov – took over billion dollar worth assets and clearly became the richest person of the country. Arseniy Yatseniuk’s Government is believed to be serving for Valeriy Kolomoiskyi’s interests.
As Ukraine found itself on the verge of collapse in 2014 being threatened with Russia’s invasion and annexation of the Crimea, possible full-scale war, loss of export-generating assets and coal mines in Russia-occupied eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, its leaders resorted to international help. Fortunately, the international organisations are powerful and wise enough to stand Ukrainian sharpers trying to scam even them while using term ‘our partners’.
In 2016 misapprehension by the Ukrainian society is based mostly on the concealment of the lack of reforms progress or vague anti-corruption action under any excuses, e.g. war, lack of funds, other primary tasks. Some people still do not get that neither state nor local budgets are not able to finance anything but meagre $100-200 salaries. But most seem to be ready to hear the terrible truth. The problem is that instead of telling everybody that we need to tighten our belts, the Government, courts, prosecutor’s offices and even some state-owned companies continue issuing huge bonuses and using expensive cars as it was accepted in the 2000s when Ukraine showed economic growth.
Ukrainian people are tired of a lie. If there is a need to wait, they will wait. But they will not wait while living in poverty while civil servants keep using fruit of corruption.
The 2016 Government Programme made people smile. Fight against corruption, effective procurement, reforms – those notions were to be implemented in 2014. As of 2016, Government can boast of a few projects, but the general impression of its ineffectiveness, lacklustre reforms performance and corruption remains. Manipulation and misapprehension considered, the Government fails to achieve expected results but found itself involved in numerous, virtually daily, corruption scandals. Their last trick is asking ‘But who will replace us? Who will place himself at the head of the country for $200-1000?’ The answer is ‘those who deserve that and love their country, but not corrupted embezzlers and peculators’.
