Ukraine witnessing recycling frenzy

[stepanstas]

Ukraine's new prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, has, in less than three weeks in office, appointed a new cabinet and fashioned a new government plan. Let’s not mention right now how badly it clashes with the presidential government plan and course for the future. Yet, Yanukovych acted fast, not because he is probably one of the country’s better-prepared politicians these days, but because he didn’t have far to look. To quote the local press, the new cabinet is full of last year’s styles. The PM has simply recycled the previous governments under Kuchma. Apparently, it’s full of old hands – and no new ideas. To be fair, given the dozen or so governments coming and going since 1991, any experienced Cabinet minister was bound to have served under ex-president Kuchma. Let us not forget that Orange revolution leaders President Yushchenko, himself, and Yulia Tymoshenko, both served under Kuchma.

But the plum jobs on Yanukovych’s staff went to supporters and those who will have no problem following the new PM’s directions faithfully. There are good friends of the ex-president like Dmytro Tabachnyk. Hardliners are many, like Azarov, best known as the country’s former tax chief. The new PM is also hoping that local oil barons like Yuriy Boyko can cultivate his oil and gas contacts to get Ukraine out of trouble with Russia and its eastern neighbors. The cabinet seats doled out to presidential supporters, meanwhile, are in forgettable posts, like culture and healthcare. However, the new health minister may have a golden opportunity to make orange juice from fallen oranges. The population has demonstrated that it is ripe for social reforms. The minister could gain praise from the PM and public alike with savvy and substantial changes to health policy and social policy. The PM would only welcome such initiatives as enhancing his reputation with the public as well as the West. On the other hand, the social portfolios will likely remain underfunded and take a back seat to energy issues. And some appointments are just plain good choices. Tarasyuk is perhaps the most capable foreign minister and will keep the foreign policy of the country stable. Like Yekhanurov, he could be appointed to any PM’s cabinet.

As for the new government’s program, it is a good gauge of what to expect from the cabinet. Yanukovych is already breaking the rules. The proposal to make Russian an official language contravenes the Constitution and the Universal signed with the president less than one month ago. Tabachnyk has tried to appease fears by painting a European Formula, which tries to address national minority issues. If the government cares for minorities, as Tabachnyk maintains, then this cabinet could be good for Crimean Tatars, who have given up on getting housing but would at least like to use their own language in the Crimean legislature. The great Ukrainian versus Russian language debate might appear insignificant to foreign observers, but it reveals more about politics than linguistics. It appears that Yanukovych has fallen back on bad, heavy-handed habits. Already he seems willing to break rules – huge rules like Constitutions - with the intention of “amending legislation later” to get his way. This behavior, combined with the failure to fulfill another part of the Universal agreement – cooperation with NATO and the EU, becomes one small step towards setting up a recycled Soviet union with brethren-in-arms Putin and Lukashenko. What the West can expect from the new cabinet is that the Ukrainian government will be cozying with the East and throwing out platitudes about important ties with Western countries at intervals just enough to hang onto foreign loans. So far, Russia is only giving out friendship and higher fuel prices, not cash. Banning Ukrainian wines from Russian markets, as Russia did last week, is not a good way to kick off a friendship. Yanukovych might want to look for better friends elsewhere. On the other hand, certain pragmatics may be at work here. Is the new cabinet just trying to revive the old days of cheap Soviet-like goods to meet the basic needs of the masses, while the elite flies to Paris for the weekend?

Although some might naively think Yanukovych cares about what the president or the public might think of him, the kinder, gentler PM, who has taken to smiling and getting pictures taken with war veterans, babies and women in traditional costumes, is merely the work of some good image-making. Yet, he has his admirers following a simple apology for his previous actions – which at least included condoning corruption of officials under his regime. Admirers come in the form of a growing number of Western critics of Yushchenko, who have become skeptical of the Orange Revolution. And they come from former colleagues, like ex-premier and newly-sentenced Pavlo Lazarenko, who knows the new PM well. Lazarenko endorses Yanukovych as a capable leader who can get things done. Ostensibly not a glowing recommendation, the public does not need Lazarenko to tell them that Yanukovych can single-mindedly achieve goals – his goals, his way. He has been patient, planned well and his thick layer of skin, primed during a troubled youth, has helped to endure a little negative press. Now, he is in the driver’s seat as PM again. With such determination, it is a pity that Yanukovych will likely be repeating the cronyism and corruption of the 1990s, rather than meaningful change for even his part of the country. But Yanukovych has already shown that he cannot deliver on his platform argument – lower fuel costs from his neighbors. Energy costs could prove to be his undoing as many PM’s before him, most recently his arch-rival Yulia Tymoshenko.

So far, Yanukovych has proven to be smart, wily and patient. He will likely play the role of compromiser for a time - as his patron Kuchma did when he became PM in the early 1990s. Yanukovych will butter both sides of his bread and wait for the crumbs to fall. At the same time, he will not be out to anger the supporters of the Orange Revolution, but intends to woo them with actual reforms to demonstrate his superiority over the Orange government.

Ukraine desperately needs its own plan for future development, be it devised by Yanukovych or someone else. As 15 years of governments before them, the new ministers appear to have chosen the well-worn paths of blindly following either Russia, which is losing global friends fast, to make life cheap or easy, or following the West, which also has its strategic interests in mind. Where is Ukraine going? This question remains unanswered. Its own people are grappling for an answer, most recently in 2004, while floundering between the selfish interests of East and West. Somehow in the last 1000 years, Ukraine fell far off the pedestal from being the most progressive nation and economic powerhouse in Europe to sitting 10 centuries later on the street corner of East Road and West Avenue, begging for small change.

Marusia Hnatkevych is an independent journalist and political analyst who lived and worked in Ukraine for over a decade.

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