FuzzyLumpkins
02-27-2016, 02:43 PM
How can one explain the contradictory picture of today’s Ukraine — a country whose government has loudly announced a reform agenda, yet whose reformers are currently leaving this very same government?
Kiev can boast its first successes in implementing the wide-ranging reform agenda it adopted in July 2014. A number of consequential laws have been passed: on lustration, fighting corruption, procurement, restructuring the civil service, modernizing higher education, creating a new police force, introducing public broadcasting, and so on. Four new anti-corruption agencies are being established.
Still other reforms are taking place on the local level. Many regions, cities, and even villages are changing their public administration for the better, either in cooperation with Kiev or independently. In a number of regional governments, like Odessa, the local changes even go beyond the reforms conducted in the capital.
And yet, despite these signs of progress, Ukraine is in the midst of a political crisis. There is clear evidence of a deepening schism within the ruling elite. After growing criticisms of the country’s lagging reform effort by foreign and domestic observers over the preceding months, Ukraine’s respected Economy Minister, Aivaras Abromavicius, stepped down on February 3, triggering an earthquake within the political class. Abromavicius made it clear that his resignation was a protest against pressure on his office by corrupt interests, and his action brought the growing frustration of the country’s reformist officials out into the open.
It’s not just that the promises of quick and comprehensive reforms made after the Euromaidan revolution have yet to be fulfilled. As Abromavicius made clear, the old kickback system and state-business networks are reasserting themselves under new guises. Ironically, this is happening despite the anti-oligarchic furor of the Euromaidan revolution and the stated reformist agenda of the new government. For all their energy and activism, a mobilized civil society sector and an engaged Western diaspora have failed to thwart the resistance of the old guard.
The standard explanation for this seeming contradiction, while it contains a large degree of truth, is incomplete: Ukraine’s post-Soviet corruption networks are fighting back, old habits and structures have survived, and Kiev’s new political leadership is clearly not as transformational as the 2014 revolutionaries thought. But why haven’t the Euromaidan’s reformist crusaders been able to overcome the old oligarchic system? Three main reasons for this failure stand out — and they can all be traced to the Kremlin.
First, there is the brutal fact of Russian military aggression. Moscow’s
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/26/how-moscow-is-subverting-ukraines-bid-for-freedom/
Kiev can boast its first successes in implementing the wide-ranging reform agenda it adopted in July 2014. A number of consequential laws have been passed: on lustration, fighting corruption, procurement, restructuring the civil service, modernizing higher education, creating a new police force, introducing public broadcasting, and so on. Four new anti-corruption agencies are being established.
Still other reforms are taking place on the local level. Many regions, cities, and even villages are changing their public administration for the better, either in cooperation with Kiev or independently. In a number of regional governments, like Odessa, the local changes even go beyond the reforms conducted in the capital.
And yet, despite these signs of progress, Ukraine is in the midst of a political crisis. There is clear evidence of a deepening schism within the ruling elite. After growing criticisms of the country’s lagging reform effort by foreign and domestic observers over the preceding months, Ukraine’s respected Economy Minister, Aivaras Abromavicius, stepped down on February 3, triggering an earthquake within the political class. Abromavicius made it clear that his resignation was a protest against pressure on his office by corrupt interests, and his action brought the growing frustration of the country’s reformist officials out into the open.
It’s not just that the promises of quick and comprehensive reforms made after the Euromaidan revolution have yet to be fulfilled. As Abromavicius made clear, the old kickback system and state-business networks are reasserting themselves under new guises. Ironically, this is happening despite the anti-oligarchic furor of the Euromaidan revolution and the stated reformist agenda of the new government. For all their energy and activism, a mobilized civil society sector and an engaged Western diaspora have failed to thwart the resistance of the old guard.
The standard explanation for this seeming contradiction, while it contains a large degree of truth, is incomplete: Ukraine’s post-Soviet corruption networks are fighting back, old habits and structures have survived, and Kiev’s new political leadership is clearly not as transformational as the 2014 revolutionaries thought. But why haven’t the Euromaidan’s reformist crusaders been able to overcome the old oligarchic system? Three main reasons for this failure stand out — and they can all be traced to the Kremlin.
First, there is the brutal fact of Russian military aggression. Moscow’s
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/26/how-moscow-is-subverting-ukraines-bid-for-freedom/