International aid groups grow impatient with the
government.
Two
years have passed since a popular uprising in Kiev toppled a Russia-backed
regime in Ukraine. The glory of that people power moment has faded, and Western
supporters are losing patience with the government as corruption hampers
efforts to jump-start the economy.
The gross domestic product of the
war-plagued country contracted 10.5 percent in 2015. Inflation reached
43 percent. On Feb. 10, International Monetary Fund Managing Director
Christine Lagarde expressed concern “about Ukraine’s slow progress in improving
governance and fighting corruption.” She said it would be hard to keep
financing Ukraine in the absence of real change.
On Feb. 3, 10 Western ambassadors also called on Ukrainian leaders to
“set aside their parochial differences” and crack down on corruption. The
statement was prompted by the resignation of reformist Economy Minister Aivaras
Abromavicius, a Lithuanian who assumed Ukrainian citizenship to join the
government in 2014. He said “actions aimed at paralyzing reforms” triggered his
resignation. He pointed a finger at Ihor Kononenko, the senior legislator of
President Petro Poroshenko’s party in Parliament and Poroshenko’s former
business partner. Kononenko had engineered the appointment of a close associate
to the post of Abromavicius’s deputy without telling the minister, according to
text messages released by Abromavicius.
Investigative journalist Serhiy Leschenko, a Parliament member, wrote
online that Kononenko was trying to get his man into the Economy Ministry so he
could stop Abromavicius from reforming a state-run company unofficially
controlled by the president’s allies. In an e-mail, Kononenko said he wouldn’t
comment pending an investigation into Abromavicius’s allegations. To address
voter anger, on Feb. 16, Poroshenko asked for the resignation of his
prosecutor-general, Viktor Shokin, who was widely disliked for failing to root
out corruption.
Ordinary
Ukrainians’ wrath is aimed primarily at Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
Eighty-two percent disapprove of the job he’s doing, according to a recent
poll by the International Republican Institute, a Washington nonprofit.
On Feb. 16, Yatsenyuk narrowly survived a no-confidence vote in
Parliament after Poroshenko called for a “full reset” of the government.
Opponents blame the prime minister for hampering reforms and accuse his allies
of corruption. “Ukraine is the same kleptocracy as it was before the people
ousted the previous leaders,” says Yegor Sobolev, who heads Ukraine’s
parliamentary committee on corruption.
Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk do have achievements they can point to. Police
reform is under way, and the government procurement process has become more
transparent. The new National Anti-Corruption Bureau is investigating
high-profile cases, including Abromavicius’s accusations.
Vladislav Burda, who owns a chain of stores that sell goods for
children, says the system is rife with corruption. Without radical reform and a
sustained war on corruption, IMF loans are useless, he says. “Before the
revolution, everyone used to feed one family,” he says—that of ousted President
Viktor Yanukovych. “But now there are many actors eager to milk businesses.”
Legislator Sobolev says that former Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili, now governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region, would be a better prime
minister than Yatsenyuk. Saakashvili, who’s credited with institutional reforms
in Georgia, is one of Ukraine’s two most popular politicians, according to
polls. The other is Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovy, who heads the liberal
Samopomych party, of which Sobolev is a member.
In December, Saakashvili accused Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and his
ministers of blocking reforms. During a meeting, Interior Minister Arsen
Avakov, a target of corruption allegations in the media, yelled invectives at
Odessa’s governor and hurled a glass of water at him. Saakashvili’s fans in
Ukraine—mainly political activists, advocates of a free-market economy, and
various MPs and journalists—are gradually coalescing into a political movement.
They’re
calling for parliamentary elections as soon as possible.
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