Volodymyr Kish
Ukraine is once again facing an existential crisis, and this time Russia is not the cause. The origin of this latest predicament is self-made, namely home grown corruption. After almost two years in power, both President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatseniuk have failed miserably in addressing the issue of corruption that drove former President Yanukovich out of power and into ignominious exile. The issue that sparked that revolution now has the potential of doing the same to the current government.
Despite a lot of rhetoric, Ukraine’s current government has done very little to root out the pervasive corruption that was born during the latter days of communism, and refined to a high art under the oligarchic regimes that followed Ukraine’s independence. It is estimated that President Yanukovich and his cohorts were able to siphon off somewhere between fifty to a hundred billion dollars from government coffers during their years in power.
Although Yanukovich and many of his most notorious henchmen are gone, corruption, regrettably, is still blatant and pervasive. Experts estimate that some $12 billion continues to be embezzled every year by the remaining oligarchs, corrupt politicians and government officials. A recent and particularly odious example saw $1.8 billion from an IMF loan meant to help stabilize the Ukrainian banking system disappear into offshore bank accounts through Ukraine’s PrivatBank, owned by oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. Despite the true facts coming to light, no one has been prosecuted for this massive fraud.
Things have gotten so bad, that U.S. Vice President Biden during a recent visit and address to the Ukrainian parliament, made it clear that if Ukraine did not take immediate aggressive steps to stem corruption, further American aid to Ukraine would cease. Similar warnings have been made by the IMF and Ukraine’s European Union allies.
Of course, this is not news to Ukraine’s long-suffering citizens, the primary victims of the rampant corruption. Their disillusionment with the current Ukrainian government and its leadership is growing exponentially. The latest polls show that President Poroshenko’s approval rating has dropped to 17% while that of Yatseniuk’s government stands at an abysmal 8%. Clearly the Ukrainian people are mad as hell and are not going to take it for too much longer. Talk of a third Maidan is growing each day while the political leadership dithers.
One of the chief villains in all this is Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Victor Shokin. Since being appointed to this post by his old pal President Poroshenko, he has done all he can to delay or prevent any meaningful reform to the Prosecutor’s office. Even the current U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine recently accused Shokin’s office for “openly and aggressively undermining reform.” Two recent cases of Swiss and British fraud and bribery investigations against Mykola Martynenko, a Yatseniuk parliamentary ally, and Mykola Zlochevsky, a former Minister of the Ecology, were stonewalled by the Prosecutor’s office.
Rooting out corruption in Ukraine requires a complete purge and restructuring of both the Prosecutor’s office and the Ukrainian judiciary. As Anders Aslund, one of the world’s leading experts on Ukraine noted earlier this year, there is a “nearly unanimous popular viewpoint” in Ukraine that the country's 10,279 judges and 20,367 prosecutors are “all corrupt.” Although President Poroshenko constantly proclaims his desire and support for drastic reform, so far, there have been few concrete results to show for it. It is clear, that until Ukrainians see some of the worst, high profile offenders sitting behind bars, few will believe that Poroshenko is any better than his oligarchic predecessors.
Here in the diaspora, most of the Ukrainians have so far given Poroshenko and Yatseniuk the benefit of the doubt and believed that they are true reformers and have the best interests of Ukraine at heart. Of late though, there is growing impatience with the lethargic pace of change in these crucial government structures, and any remaining good will is eroding quickly. The diaspora has played a key role in marshalling foreign support for Ukraine over the past few years. The Ukrainian government better take heed of the growing discontent, or it will soon find itself an orphan on the world stage again.
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