Saturday, November 19, 2005
SENT NOV 19, 2004
Summary of the Pre Election Debate held last year between the Viktors:
There are other summaries out there in cyberspace; I apologize for not taking the time to provide you with links to them. . .
Last Monday, Nov. 15, there was a televised debate between Viktor Janukovych and Viktor Jushchenko that was very telling, and which has inspired me to write a lengthy rumination. Below I give a summary of what was said, interspersed with my own analysis or commentary. What I have written below should be of great assistance to those of you who don’t really know (but want to) in much detail what the situation is in Ukraine today, what the issues in this election are, and thus who these two candidates really are. In course of trying to write this as an objective account of the debate, I found myself all too compelled to get into the middle of it all—in the end, I couldn’t hide the fact that I am clearly for Jushchenko and passionately against Janukovych. So much for journalistic objectivity.
But who cares, since only one of the candidates consistently told the truth anyway.
So really this is a thought-piece on Ukraine’s current predicament and election which I wrote to instruct myself as much as anyone else. Its rather long, and I may have made mistakes; I hope more knowledgeable readers will correct me where I am wrong.
The debate centered around three questions to the candidates: What are your policies for the economy, on domestic policy, and on foreign policy? Based on how each candidate answered each question, not on the substance of what they said, I give the first two answers to Jushchenko, the last one to Janukovych.
Some background is necessary if you are to follow what was said in the debate:
Viktor Jushchenko (whose last name can also be spelled Yushchenko in English) is currently a member (a deputy to) Ukraine’s parliament. He has long been active in government; previously he was head of the National Bank of Ukraine, then prime minister, and today is leader of the largest opposition bloc in parliament. He is an economist and banker by training and profession, and worked as such in Soviet times. He is also rumored to be a member of the Paris Club of financiers. He is widely respected internationally for overseeing, while head of the National Bank (served 1993-1999), the very successful introduction of the hryvnja (Ukraine’s currency), in what was then an exceptionally chaotic economic climate in Ukraine (mid-1990s). Through the successful introduction of the hrynja in place of the karbovanets and other of his actions as bank chief, Yushchenko was instrumental in bringing Ukraine’s racing inflation under control, with the result that Ukraine’s economy began to stabilize to the point that today, at long last, it is making a promising if slow and fragile recovery. Later, during his brief tenure as prime minister in 1999-2001 (appointed in Dec. of 1999), he began financial reforms of the government that resulted in the payment of months-overdue pension and of wages to workers in government industries and pensions; he also oversaw payment of a significant portion of Ukraine’s foreign debt. Furhermore, he and his deputy PM Julija Tymoshenko initiated reform of the energy sector, Ukraine’s most corrupt sector of the economy from whence many an oligarch sprang.
Viktor Janukovych (whose last name can also be spelled Yanukovych) is currently Ukraine’s prime minister (PM). Ukraine has both a prime minister and a president, while the president is the ultimate authority. The president is elected, while the PM is appointed by the president (the president can also dismiss the PM), who’s appointment is then approved by parliament. Janukovych’s early career is a bit muddled, but his campaign pamphlets paint him as a fellow “orphaned” (his mother died when he was young, and his father abandoned him to his grandmother) at an early age who then had to work hard to rise up in the world. The image he tries to project of himself is that of a self-made man. What is more solidly known about him is that he twice spent time in Soviet prisons for theft and assault. His speech, even when talking to voters at rallies and a few times in the course of the debate Monday night, is full of prisoner’s slang. It is widely believed that he rose to power through what is called “the Donetsk clan,” one of the oligarchic clans with a stranglehold on Ukraine’s economy and government, and that today he is part of its inner circle. Of course he denies all this, including the reasons for his jail-time, about which he claims to have been victim of the injustice of Soviet courts. He instead tries to emphasize his public service, i.e., the political positions he has held. He was governor of the Donetsk oblast (state) before being appointed PM by Kuchma two years ago. Before becoming PM, Janukovych was virtually unknown throughout most of Ukraine.
So onto the debate:
Janukovych began the debate with a short greeting and statement that he agreed to the televised debate because he had received so many letters asking him to join the debate.
Janukovych had initially refused to publicly debate Jushchenko under the premise that Jushchenko was such a liar that a civilized debate could not be had with him. Also, Janukovych’s campaign had made a statement that he would only debate Jushchenko if Jushchenko apologized for “insulting” him during the campaign season. Janukovych is apparently “insulted” by Jushchenko’s constant references to him and most of the Ukrainian authorities (i.e., to the oligarchs) as thieves, bandits, etc. One of Jushchenko’s campaign slogans is that “Bandits will sit in prison!” and the bandits he is refering to are precisely Yanukovych and associates. Also, the opposition movement that has thrown its support to Yushchenko in this election has made great use of Janukovych’s prisoner’s background, plastering posters with images of Janukovych as a prisoner everywhere they can, and using all kinds of prison-slang in anti-Janukovych slogans and speeches, such as what Jushchenko said in his own introductory remarks to the debate: “The difference between the two of us is not the difference between two Viktors but between two world views, between doing things in the prisoner’s way (using slang that means this), and doing them honestly.” (Note: many pundits of various political persuasions in Ukraine have said that the difference between Jushchenko and Janukovych is merely the difference between two Viktors. In other words, for them, Viktor Jushchenko is just another of what he says he is not, an oligarch like Viktor Janukovych; the difference between the two Vitkors is the slight difference between two oligarchs. . .)
In the end, an apology from Jushchenko was not forthcoming, which Janukovych no doubt counted on; and he nonetheless was pressured to join in the debate—there was much public outcry over his refusal to debate. So he concluded his introductory remarks with the statement (which he has used frequently during his campaign) that he’s not a talker, he’s a doer, revealing to my mind the real reasons he didn’t want to debate: Janukovych doesn’t have the sophisticated intellect that Jushchenko does.
Which brings me to another point: much like Republicans and conservative pundits did in the US with Clinton, Gore, or Kerry, Janukovych and his backers have done everything they can to portray Jushchenko as a liar and manipulator, encouraging voters to confuse Jushchenko’s having a sharp intellect and a firm grasp of the issues with his being a slick-willy, a sly-as-a-fox manipulator who is leading the people to their own damnation.
Thus, in various moments throughout the debate, Janukovych—in terms very reminiscent to Republican tactics against Clinton—tried to discredit Jushchenko’s populism while claiming that he was the real populist, a self-made man of the people while Jushchenko is supposed to be an aloof elite. Below I will show examples from the debate of how he did this. What is important is that it is clear that not enough of the voters have bought it, if you accept all the independent counts that show Jushchenko already in truth won with over 50% of the vote, and that he performed much better than expected in many parts of Ukraine that Janukovych was expected to win by landslide. (Perhaps the Soviet experience, when such personal attacks on politicians and leaders were just par for the course, especially when denouncing or removing someone from a post, has made Ukraine’s electorate less susceptible to such below-the-belt tactics.)
Thus, in the course of the debate Janukovych made several claims in rather contradictory terms that Jushchenko represents both the old guard of old Soviet thinking (implying that he is a manipulator and liar), while at the same time Jushchenko is a national-liberal, meaning that he is a Ukrainian (ultra-)nationalist that the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine should fear. Of course, he did not make these conflicting accusations back-to-back, but at different points in the course of the debate, depending on which was the better method of attack at the moment. In general, one can say that Janukovych spent only half his time discussing anything specific, such as the alleged successes of his government and what he promises to accomplish as President, and the other half of his time in empty talk about Jushchenko in general and occasionally venturing some specific attacks on the substance and successes of his policies and record. Janukovych’s attacks went as follows:
Janukovych claimed that Jushchenko was responsible for having had emptied Ukraine’s treasury while PM, thus leaving the Ukrainian government nearly bankrupt and Janukovych with the difficult task of rebuilding the state’s funds at the start of his government. Janukovych, however, never stated exactly, just how Jushchenko was responsible for the empty treasury at the start of his government, which is exemplary of how he debated in general: he only once made any assertion while stating figures (about wages, which we will get to), while Jushchenko in general gave facts and figures to back up his assertions.
Well, OK, this is not exactly true: Janukovych did give one possible explanation for how Jushchenko depleted the treasury. He mentioned the issue of the closure of the Chornobyl power plant while Jushchenko was PM as hitting the treasury hard because of the high cost of decommissioning the plant and because of the subsequent costs incurred as Ukraine became more dependent on foreign energy sources, and thus had to buy/import foreign energy. I don’t consider this as a legitimate explanation of how Jushchenko despoiled the treasury because, a) these issues around Chornobyl alone could not have depleted the treasury to the extent that it has been emptied, and b) Janukovych in this instance is unfairly politicizing a very difficult issue that had been crippling Ukraine’s relations with the West for some time. If Ukraine truly wanted to maintain good relations with both the West as well as with Russia, something had to be done about Chornobyl (Western powers have continuously been pushing for the closure of the remaining reactors still active at the plant, site of the world’s greatest nuclear catastrophe to date). As we will see, Janukovych politicized this issue by implying that it indicated that Jushchenko is a darling of the West who will betray Ukraine’s stability and vital interests by abandoning a policy of cooperation with Russia. In fact, at one point, he said directly to Jushchenko that he’s not a patriot. Thus, Janukovych can be seen here as politicizing the issue of Chornobyl, turning into a debate about nationalism and patriotism in an effort to split Russian and Russo-Ukrainian voters from Jushchenko. We will get into this in more detail at the end of the essay, for it is the stickiest of all issues facing Jushchenko—many, even those who overall did and do support Jushchenko, were upset by the closure of the plant, but mostly for the way it has indeed made Ukraine more energy-dependent, and by the fact that although the West demanded the decommissioning of the plant, it did not give any aid-money to help with the cost of the closure and to off-set the enormous financial burden it put on Ukraine as it became more dependent on foreign energy imports.
Anyhow, this is how Jushchenko responded to the attack that he emptied the treasury:
He more or less said, “You should have seen the state the treasury was in when I began my government as PM—you’re lucky that I was there before you,” and emphasized how he was able, as PM, to raise funds to pay pensions and wages that were months overdue (unpaid because the government was broke), and to make a start on paying Ukraine’s foreign debt. He went on to discuss how the ongoing problems of the treasury have nothing to do with anything he did, but with the lasting effects of the banditry of a government of corrupt oligarchs who used money from the treasury (as well as from elsewhere) to buy state-run businesses and industries during privatization, and who often bought these businesses at only half their value; and who has spent money on fancy cars and luxuries for itself; who has spent state money on fixing up some of the infrastructure only in those parts of Ukraine where they, as oligarchs, are powerful; who have spent money on fixing up government buildings where they work; and who have spent money on plenty of other corrupt shenanigans that have resulted in the widening of the gulf that exists between the people and the government, such that that gulf arguably is bigger today in post-Soviet Ukraine than it was even in Soviet times, etc.
For example, Jushchenko specifically mentioned the infamous instance in which the oligarch Akhmetov (a 39-yr-old fellow who is arguably Ukraine’s most powerful oligarch) bought Ukraine’s largest industry for only half its real value. (Ukrainians love to talk about this, as well as about Lazarenko’s shenanigans.) Jushchenko said that in this one moment, the state’s treasury was robbed of at least 5 billion hrynja (or $1 billion)—money, he was quick to mention, that could have been used to pay pensions and wages, or to support other social programs, such as education (such as providing stipends for higher education) or healthcare. Jushchenko then gave other examples of how the banditry of the government is depleting the treasury: Kuchma has used 85 million hrynjas for renovation of the buildings of the presidential administration (including his own penthouse in Kyiv!), and Jushchenko briefly mentioned the way the government spends money on “niceties” for itself (such as cars, dachas, travel, etc.). The government spends money this way, while at one point just two years ago pensions and wages in state industries were not being paid--and which only did get paid when Jushchenko was PM, because Jushchenko imposed fiscal discipline on the government, which is probably a reason Kuchma fired him a year later. And Jushchenko mentioned, in various points of the debate, that the government’s spending on itself goes on today (with only the brief interruption of the period that he was PM), while wages and pensions in Ukraine have slumped to the point that they are now lowest in all of the former Soviet Republics—lower even than in Belarus’! The government—Jushchenko did not explicitly state during the debate, but he has many times at opposition rallies—is not a government at all, but a counterproductive force working against society; it’s a parasite living off of society. It steals the people’s money—money they need for social programs—and fills its own pockets. Thus Jushchenko says about Janukovych that he is part of a government that is not a government at all but a criminal racket bleeding Ukraine dry.
By-the-way, we will talk about this assertion about wages and pensions later, for Janukovych contests this claim that they are lowest in all the CIS—and as usual, he does so without any real figures, while Jushchenko demolished his contestation with actual facts, figures, and analysis.
But back to the problems of the treasury—Jushchenko’s argument thus was that although he did not leave the treasury in perfect shape, he left it in much better shape then it was before he became PM, and furthermore, it had been his intention to work toward replenishing it, but he wasn’t given the chance! That is, it is important to remember that Jushchenko was fired after being PM for litte more than one year. Janukovych implied that he was fired because he was bankrupting the government (with the issue of Chornobyl being his only example of how Jushchenko was doing so), but Jushchenko retorted with saying that his first priority as PM had been to find the money to pay overdue wages and pensions and to start paying off some of Ukraine’s foreign debt, both of which he successfully managed to do, and only then move on to the long-term problem of rebuilding the treasury. But what happened in the end? Kuchma allowed him to continue with his reformist government insofar as he managed to pay the wages and pensions and make significant payments to reduce Ukraine’s foreign debt, but then all of a sudden Kuchma fired him. Why? Well, once the wages, pensions, and a portion of the debt were paid, the policy of rebuilding the treasury clearly meant long-term, wide-scale reform of the way the government did business, which meant seriously challenging Kuchma’s own (highly corrupt) sources of power in the government. More specifically, Jushchenko got into trouble as PM when his deputy-PM, Julija Tymoshenko, began to aggressively attack corruption in the energry sector, which is the base of the oligarchy's wealth and power. So who, really, is responsible for the treasury still being in a mess, other than Kuchma?
And who is responsible for the treasury still being depleted and in chaos, other than the man who has been PM for the past two years? Janukovych, however, claims that his government has been paying debts, too; debts owed mostly to society, such as money still owed to victims of Chornobyl, or such as when he just recently, curiously just one month before the elections, announced a raise in pensions. We will see what Jushchenko has to say about all this (and once again how Janukovych is trying to motivate Russians and those still nostalgic for the USSR against Jushchenko by politicizing the Chornobyl issue.)
Then to these problems of the treasury, one needs to add the problem of inflation, which also decreased state revenues, let alone having a harmful, and at one time a very devastating, effect on the average person.
Janukovych tried to make Jushchenko seem solely responsible for the inflation of the early years of independence, when Leoid Kravchuk was President from Dec., 1991-June, 1994, and Jushchenko was head of the National Bank (again, 1993-1999, when he became PM). He did so by stating that a barter economy became the dominant mode of economic behavior while Jushchenko was head of the National Bank. You see, it is widely known that Kravchuk was liable to simply print more and more money to try and replenish the treasury after he oversaw its pillaging (i.e., he was President during the first round of privatization in which oligarchs ran-off with millions, if not billions), as well as for money to flow into society to try and cover needs. The result was an inflation that eventually skyrocketed. As inflation took off, barter slowly replaced exchange until it reached the point of being the dominant mode of economic behavior in Ukraine in the mid-19900s (the old currency, the karbovanets, was rendered practically worthless by inflation, and interestingly enough, a whole genre of political cartoons emerged representing officials discussing how to represent all the zeros on subsequent printings of the karbovanets).
[This is from Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, about Kravchuk: "He failed to avoid corruption in the privatization of country's industry and promote effective financial decisions. Ukrainian annual inflation rates from 1993 to 1995 reached the world's highest record of 10000%. Millions of loans given by semi-government banks defaulted. This led to delays of many years in salaries for industry workers, teachers etc. The collapse of the Black Sea Steamship Company became the saddest symbol of Kravchuk's era. This global merchant fleet, the largest in the world (based mostly in Odessa), was covertly sold out to foreign companies, mostly for fake debts. Hundreds of sailors who hadn't received their salaries were trapped for years on board their vessels throughout the world. Kravchuk's own son was later accused of taking part in this fraud." And this bastard remains free and talking all of his nonsense to this day in Ukraine; makes me want to scream for lustration in Ukraine. . .I added this paragraph today, Nov. 19, 2005]
How Jushchenko fits into all of this is not clear to my mind—there are no doubt better informed people out there who could tell you—but here’s what I can say. He was appointed head of the National Bank in 1993 by Kravchuk, and thus was Bank chief during the period of skyrocketing inflation, when barter replaced exchange. I don’t know if the undisciplined printing of money that was one of the main causes of inflation occurred while Jushchenko was National Bank chief, or if the printing took place in the two years of Kravchuk’s presidency before Jushchenko became head of the Bank. And if it did take place while Jushchenko was head of the bank, I don’t know how much freedom he had; i.e., whether he had to do Kravchuk’s bidding. Nonetheless, it seems that the Head of a National Bank would have something to do with the printing of money and controlling or causing inflation, no? Well, in that case, whether or not Jushchenko can be blamed (only in part, at most) for the inflation, he can also be praised for rescuing the situation in 1995, with the much praised (in Ukraine and internationally) introduction of the hrynja and implementation of fiscal policy that dramatically reduced inflation and was a major factor in the stabilization of Ukraine’s economy and its getting started on a path toward recovery (as we have already discussed). One can also take Jushchenko’s word for it, that he didn’t have anything to do with the growth of the barter economy (i.e., with inflation), if one would like. That is, at the point in the debate when Janukovych made this accusation that Jushchenko was responsible for the growth of the barter economy, Jushchenko verbally baulked at and interrupted him, speaking briefly out of turn, saying “That (the rise in barter) had nothing to do with me—I was head of a Bank that deals with money, not barter.” Of course, this was not exactly right; as we have seen, he may have played a role in the inflationary pressures that resulted in such a steep rise in barter in Ukraine at the time, to the point that over half of all economic behavior was barter; he nonetheless played a central role in reversing this.
Interestingly enough, however, later in the debate and in response to Janukovych, Jushchenko had these two things to say to him: The state of Donetsk had the highest percentage of its economy being barter in all of Ukraine while you were governor there! And secondly, Jushchenko commented that he has never seen such low exchange rates for the hryvnja as those that obtain today, under Janukovych’s government (and remember that Jushchenko is a highly qualified observer of such matters, as an economist and one who understands quite well the way markets trade in currencies). Jushchenko counterattacked by stating that so far, under Janukovych, inflation is rising again and the Ukrainian currency is once again depreciating in value—all of which will be important in a moment, when we discuss Janukovych’s claim that his government has caused an increase in wages and has been able to increase pension (Jushchenko will say, yeah, sure, but prices have risen more than wages, evidenced in last October’s sudden jump in prices for basic goods in Ukraine).
But now I want to mention the issue of rhetoric: Jushchenko stated in various points of the debate (as well as at his political rallies) how it was shameful to let the hryvnja slide like this; how it is shameful that the government presides over a Ukraine with the lowest pensions and wages in all of the CIS; how it is shameful that the government in the past let oligarchs steal the people’s wealth during privatization; and overall how it is shameful that the government is keeping people trapped in an undignified poverty when Ukraine has such potential to be a prosperous nation. He kept saying, Ukrainians need a government that will uproot corruption. He kept stating that Ukrainians need a “clean” economy, a “clean” government, not one of bandits and ex-cons, but of principled leaders who care about the people. Thus, in numerous points of the debate, he emphasized how he would use money used by Kuchma for things like the renovation of the buildings of the presidential administration for social programs, to support education, healthcare (the healthcare situation in much of Ukraine is deplorable, unless you can pay for it), and for job creation. And Jushchenko at one point mentioned that perhaps the greatest measure of the success of a government is the number of jobs it created, and he stated that because of the policies of his government as PM, Ukraine saw the creation of 400,000 new jobs in 2000 and additional 700,000 in 2001. Contrast this to the ongoing situation in which over half of Ukraine’s population lacks steady jobs—and the fact that Janukovych had nothing to say about job-creation. (Thus, Jushchenko sounds much less like a neoliberal to me and more and more like a Keynesian social democrat all the time).
Janukovych also tried in various ways to present himself as a populist: he did so only partially by trumpeting the alleged successes of his government. But we will see that he highly politicized these successes in effort to make Jushchenko seem like he didn’t care about issues dear to the heart of say, Russians in Ukraine. Janukovych and everyone else like him are desperate to split the vote, to generate false divisions within Ukraine’s electorate by manipulating Ukraine’s multicultural situation, to split Ukrainians against Russians, to divide and rule. Jushchenko is at his most humane, most eloquent, and most passionate when he discusses the false divisions of the Ukrainian citizenry, and how he wants to build a pluralist, multicultural Ukraine for the benefit of all—for no doubt, Janukovych’s policies will in the end be just as harmful economically to Russians as to Ukrainians, because in the end we’re not dealing with purely issues of culture. In fact, we’re really dealing with a pluralist candidate who wants to help everyone in his country versus a candidate who politicizes cultural divisions in an effort to maintain the rule of a fantastically wealthy and corrupt oligarchy at the expense of everyone else, whether Ukrainian or Russian, or Tatar, or Jew, or any other minority. Everyday people care most of all about bread, and while Jushchenko talks about it in universal and pluralist terms, it's Janukovych who tries to force people to think in terms of khlib (Ukrainian for bread) or khleb (Russian for bread).
Thus, what Janukovych mostly did was attack Jushchenko, repeating claims again and again that Jushchenko was responsible for the people’s woes as a result of his alleged hand in the inflation of the early years and for emptying the treasury as PM. Janukovych kept asking, “What kind of populism is this?” and kept stating in various ways that, “The people won’t go back to those days; they don’t want you. They need a new kind of government that cares, etc. I represent the new wave, etc.”
About the successes of his own government, Janukovych claimed that his government has replenished the treasury and got the government rolling in a more productive direction. This was done, Janukovych claimed, by bringing more of the shadow economy into the light; i.e., government has succeeded in bringing much of the shadow economy under control, therefore filling the treasury with increased tax-revenues. By increasing the government’s ability to collect taxes, he claims his government has been able to lower the tax burden on already existing, legitimate enterprise, which then has also led to an increase in wages. Thus the government, with greater tax revenues coming in according to Janukovych, has been able to increase pensions as well as wages for those employed by the state. (An aside, but an important one: the authorities in Ukraine are very fond of using accusations of tax-fraud as an excuse for going after the businesses or for launching investigations of the personal finances of those who don’t exactly cooperate with them.)
In response to these claims of success, Jushchenko said the following:
About wages: wages have not risen as much as prices; we still suffer inflation; in fact, inflation is getting worse again. I have never seen the hrynja traded at such low levels, etc. Here are some statistics: before Janukovych became PM, the average Ukrainian family consumed 36 kg of meat and 63kg of salo (the most Ukrainian of dishes); today, average Ukrainians consume 22kg meat and 30kg salo. Whose policies are responsible for this? You say you lessened the tax burden on companies so that they could raise wages, but right now, prices are rising faster than wages. Who is responsible? Who’s been PM for the last two years? Look at what happened in October. Prices jumped. This is why we right now have the lowest wages and pensions in the CIS—inflation is outrunning wages and pensions again, so what good does your claim to an increase in wages prove (especially when it is a dubious claim)?
About pensions: Jushchenko simply tried to warn voters that this is not permanent. He pointed out that the raise in pensions occurred one month before the election, and more importantly, that the money for the increase in pensions is not in Janukovych’s government’s budget; and that it can therefore easily be taken back. And if one has been listening to what Jushchenko has been saying this far, one should also be getting the point that there are no solid economic policies on which Janukovych’s government stands. Jushchenko concluded with saying that the pension increase is cheese in a trap (“Tse sir!” he exclaimed).
About replenishing the treasury by bringing the shadow economy under better control: Jushchenko went on the offensive, saying that the shadow economy is still 54% of the economy in Ukraine, and (quite humorously, I thought), he asked Janukovych, refering to him by using his first name and patronymic, “Viktor Fedorovych, if you don’t have the facts, why do you bother to talk?” He then went on to say that only the government can be responsible for the persistence of the shadow-economy, that corruption in the government and unsound policy, and things like inflation and unemployment lead, to a shadow economy and a barter economy; and he implied that the oligarchy profits from having a shadow economy, with the statement that “Power is an umbrella for the shadow-economy.” He then went on to say that that the only reason Janukovych could claim to have replenished the treasury is because it has taken $5 billion in loans (from where, I don’t know). Thus, Janukovych has taken these loans, while at the same time relaxing taxes on “legitimate enterprise.” Hm. And Jushchenko pointed out that this will cause or is causing inflation, and that Ukrainians and especially their children will have to pay it back it. Janukovych also talks about fulfilling the budget, but he did it by taking loans, by increasing Ukraine’s debt. Thus, Jushchenko complained that it’s a false budget, that wage increases are false, that the pension increases are cheese, and that, in his words, “every 5th hrynja (in Janukovych’s budget) comes from the ceiling” which will cause inflation and very possibly continue the problem of Ukraine’s poor credit in the West.
So that its for now. I will send a second email about the final issue: that of Chornobyl, which I will use to discuss how it is the Russophile oligarchy that is manipulating Ukraine’s electorate, dividing into Ukrainian and Russian camps, into proWest and proRussia camps. And how it is Jushchenko that is the only multivectoralist and centrist, supporting a policy that is neither proWest nor proRussia but for the People of Ukraine of every background.
There are other summaries out there in cyberspace; I apologize for not taking the time to provide you with links to them. . .
Last Monday, Nov. 15, there was a televised debate between Viktor Janukovych and Viktor Jushchenko that was very telling, and which has inspired me to write a lengthy rumination. Below I give a summary of what was said, interspersed with my own analysis or commentary. What I have written below should be of great assistance to those of you who don’t really know (but want to) in much detail what the situation is in Ukraine today, what the issues in this election are, and thus who these two candidates really are. In course of trying to write this as an objective account of the debate, I found myself all too compelled to get into the middle of it all—in the end, I couldn’t hide the fact that I am clearly for Jushchenko and passionately against Janukovych. So much for journalistic objectivity.
But who cares, since only one of the candidates consistently told the truth anyway.
So really this is a thought-piece on Ukraine’s current predicament and election which I wrote to instruct myself as much as anyone else. Its rather long, and I may have made mistakes; I hope more knowledgeable readers will correct me where I am wrong.
The debate centered around three questions to the candidates: What are your policies for the economy, on domestic policy, and on foreign policy? Based on how each candidate answered each question, not on the substance of what they said, I give the first two answers to Jushchenko, the last one to Janukovych.
Some background is necessary if you are to follow what was said in the debate:
Viktor Jushchenko (whose last name can also be spelled Yushchenko in English) is currently a member (a deputy to) Ukraine’s parliament. He has long been active in government; previously he was head of the National Bank of Ukraine, then prime minister, and today is leader of the largest opposition bloc in parliament. He is an economist and banker by training and profession, and worked as such in Soviet times. He is also rumored to be a member of the Paris Club of financiers. He is widely respected internationally for overseeing, while head of the National Bank (served 1993-1999), the very successful introduction of the hryvnja (Ukraine’s currency), in what was then an exceptionally chaotic economic climate in Ukraine (mid-1990s). Through the successful introduction of the hrynja in place of the karbovanets and other of his actions as bank chief, Yushchenko was instrumental in bringing Ukraine’s racing inflation under control, with the result that Ukraine’s economy began to stabilize to the point that today, at long last, it is making a promising if slow and fragile recovery. Later, during his brief tenure as prime minister in 1999-2001 (appointed in Dec. of 1999), he began financial reforms of the government that resulted in the payment of months-overdue pension and of wages to workers in government industries and pensions; he also oversaw payment of a significant portion of Ukraine’s foreign debt. Furhermore, he and his deputy PM Julija Tymoshenko initiated reform of the energy sector, Ukraine’s most corrupt sector of the economy from whence many an oligarch sprang.
Viktor Janukovych (whose last name can also be spelled Yanukovych) is currently Ukraine’s prime minister (PM). Ukraine has both a prime minister and a president, while the president is the ultimate authority. The president is elected, while the PM is appointed by the president (the president can also dismiss the PM), who’s appointment is then approved by parliament. Janukovych’s early career is a bit muddled, but his campaign pamphlets paint him as a fellow “orphaned” (his mother died when he was young, and his father abandoned him to his grandmother) at an early age who then had to work hard to rise up in the world. The image he tries to project of himself is that of a self-made man. What is more solidly known about him is that he twice spent time in Soviet prisons for theft and assault. His speech, even when talking to voters at rallies and a few times in the course of the debate Monday night, is full of prisoner’s slang. It is widely believed that he rose to power through what is called “the Donetsk clan,” one of the oligarchic clans with a stranglehold on Ukraine’s economy and government, and that today he is part of its inner circle. Of course he denies all this, including the reasons for his jail-time, about which he claims to have been victim of the injustice of Soviet courts. He instead tries to emphasize his public service, i.e., the political positions he has held. He was governor of the Donetsk oblast (state) before being appointed PM by Kuchma two years ago. Before becoming PM, Janukovych was virtually unknown throughout most of Ukraine.
So onto the debate:
Janukovych began the debate with a short greeting and statement that he agreed to the televised debate because he had received so many letters asking him to join the debate.
Janukovych had initially refused to publicly debate Jushchenko under the premise that Jushchenko was such a liar that a civilized debate could not be had with him. Also, Janukovych’s campaign had made a statement that he would only debate Jushchenko if Jushchenko apologized for “insulting” him during the campaign season. Janukovych is apparently “insulted” by Jushchenko’s constant references to him and most of the Ukrainian authorities (i.e., to the oligarchs) as thieves, bandits, etc. One of Jushchenko’s campaign slogans is that “Bandits will sit in prison!” and the bandits he is refering to are precisely Yanukovych and associates. Also, the opposition movement that has thrown its support to Yushchenko in this election has made great use of Janukovych’s prisoner’s background, plastering posters with images of Janukovych as a prisoner everywhere they can, and using all kinds of prison-slang in anti-Janukovych slogans and speeches, such as what Jushchenko said in his own introductory remarks to the debate: “The difference between the two of us is not the difference between two Viktors but between two world views, between doing things in the prisoner’s way (using slang that means this), and doing them honestly.” (Note: many pundits of various political persuasions in Ukraine have said that the difference between Jushchenko and Janukovych is merely the difference between two Viktors. In other words, for them, Viktor Jushchenko is just another of what he says he is not, an oligarch like Viktor Janukovych; the difference between the two Vitkors is the slight difference between two oligarchs. . .)
In the end, an apology from Jushchenko was not forthcoming, which Janukovych no doubt counted on; and he nonetheless was pressured to join in the debate—there was much public outcry over his refusal to debate. So he concluded his introductory remarks with the statement (which he has used frequently during his campaign) that he’s not a talker, he’s a doer, revealing to my mind the real reasons he didn’t want to debate: Janukovych doesn’t have the sophisticated intellect that Jushchenko does.
Which brings me to another point: much like Republicans and conservative pundits did in the US with Clinton, Gore, or Kerry, Janukovych and his backers have done everything they can to portray Jushchenko as a liar and manipulator, encouraging voters to confuse Jushchenko’s having a sharp intellect and a firm grasp of the issues with his being a slick-willy, a sly-as-a-fox manipulator who is leading the people to their own damnation.
Thus, in various moments throughout the debate, Janukovych—in terms very reminiscent to Republican tactics against Clinton—tried to discredit Jushchenko’s populism while claiming that he was the real populist, a self-made man of the people while Jushchenko is supposed to be an aloof elite. Below I will show examples from the debate of how he did this. What is important is that it is clear that not enough of the voters have bought it, if you accept all the independent counts that show Jushchenko already in truth won with over 50% of the vote, and that he performed much better than expected in many parts of Ukraine that Janukovych was expected to win by landslide. (Perhaps the Soviet experience, when such personal attacks on politicians and leaders were just par for the course, especially when denouncing or removing someone from a post, has made Ukraine’s electorate less susceptible to such below-the-belt tactics.)
Thus, in the course of the debate Janukovych made several claims in rather contradictory terms that Jushchenko represents both the old guard of old Soviet thinking (implying that he is a manipulator and liar), while at the same time Jushchenko is a national-liberal, meaning that he is a Ukrainian (ultra-)nationalist that the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine should fear. Of course, he did not make these conflicting accusations back-to-back, but at different points in the course of the debate, depending on which was the better method of attack at the moment. In general, one can say that Janukovych spent only half his time discussing anything specific, such as the alleged successes of his government and what he promises to accomplish as President, and the other half of his time in empty talk about Jushchenko in general and occasionally venturing some specific attacks on the substance and successes of his policies and record. Janukovych’s attacks went as follows:
Janukovych claimed that Jushchenko was responsible for having had emptied Ukraine’s treasury while PM, thus leaving the Ukrainian government nearly bankrupt and Janukovych with the difficult task of rebuilding the state’s funds at the start of his government. Janukovych, however, never stated exactly, just how Jushchenko was responsible for the empty treasury at the start of his government, which is exemplary of how he debated in general: he only once made any assertion while stating figures (about wages, which we will get to), while Jushchenko in general gave facts and figures to back up his assertions.
Well, OK, this is not exactly true: Janukovych did give one possible explanation for how Jushchenko depleted the treasury. He mentioned the issue of the closure of the Chornobyl power plant while Jushchenko was PM as hitting the treasury hard because of the high cost of decommissioning the plant and because of the subsequent costs incurred as Ukraine became more dependent on foreign energy sources, and thus had to buy/import foreign energy. I don’t consider this as a legitimate explanation of how Jushchenko despoiled the treasury because, a) these issues around Chornobyl alone could not have depleted the treasury to the extent that it has been emptied, and b) Janukovych in this instance is unfairly politicizing a very difficult issue that had been crippling Ukraine’s relations with the West for some time. If Ukraine truly wanted to maintain good relations with both the West as well as with Russia, something had to be done about Chornobyl (Western powers have continuously been pushing for the closure of the remaining reactors still active at the plant, site of the world’s greatest nuclear catastrophe to date). As we will see, Janukovych politicized this issue by implying that it indicated that Jushchenko is a darling of the West who will betray Ukraine’s stability and vital interests by abandoning a policy of cooperation with Russia. In fact, at one point, he said directly to Jushchenko that he’s not a patriot. Thus, Janukovych can be seen here as politicizing the issue of Chornobyl, turning into a debate about nationalism and patriotism in an effort to split Russian and Russo-Ukrainian voters from Jushchenko. We will get into this in more detail at the end of the essay, for it is the stickiest of all issues facing Jushchenko—many, even those who overall did and do support Jushchenko, were upset by the closure of the plant, but mostly for the way it has indeed made Ukraine more energy-dependent, and by the fact that although the West demanded the decommissioning of the plant, it did not give any aid-money to help with the cost of the closure and to off-set the enormous financial burden it put on Ukraine as it became more dependent on foreign energy imports.
Anyhow, this is how Jushchenko responded to the attack that he emptied the treasury:
He more or less said, “You should have seen the state the treasury was in when I began my government as PM—you’re lucky that I was there before you,” and emphasized how he was able, as PM, to raise funds to pay pensions and wages that were months overdue (unpaid because the government was broke), and to make a start on paying Ukraine’s foreign debt. He went on to discuss how the ongoing problems of the treasury have nothing to do with anything he did, but with the lasting effects of the banditry of a government of corrupt oligarchs who used money from the treasury (as well as from elsewhere) to buy state-run businesses and industries during privatization, and who often bought these businesses at only half their value; and who has spent money on fancy cars and luxuries for itself; who has spent state money on fixing up some of the infrastructure only in those parts of Ukraine where they, as oligarchs, are powerful; who have spent money on fixing up government buildings where they work; and who have spent money on plenty of other corrupt shenanigans that have resulted in the widening of the gulf that exists between the people and the government, such that that gulf arguably is bigger today in post-Soviet Ukraine than it was even in Soviet times, etc.
For example, Jushchenko specifically mentioned the infamous instance in which the oligarch Akhmetov (a 39-yr-old fellow who is arguably Ukraine’s most powerful oligarch) bought Ukraine’s largest industry for only half its real value. (Ukrainians love to talk about this, as well as about Lazarenko’s shenanigans.) Jushchenko said that in this one moment, the state’s treasury was robbed of at least 5 billion hrynja (or $1 billion)—money, he was quick to mention, that could have been used to pay pensions and wages, or to support other social programs, such as education (such as providing stipends for higher education) or healthcare. Jushchenko then gave other examples of how the banditry of the government is depleting the treasury: Kuchma has used 85 million hrynjas for renovation of the buildings of the presidential administration (including his own penthouse in Kyiv!), and Jushchenko briefly mentioned the way the government spends money on “niceties” for itself (such as cars, dachas, travel, etc.). The government spends money this way, while at one point just two years ago pensions and wages in state industries were not being paid--and which only did get paid when Jushchenko was PM, because Jushchenko imposed fiscal discipline on the government, which is probably a reason Kuchma fired him a year later. And Jushchenko mentioned, in various points of the debate, that the government’s spending on itself goes on today (with only the brief interruption of the period that he was PM), while wages and pensions in Ukraine have slumped to the point that they are now lowest in all of the former Soviet Republics—lower even than in Belarus’! The government—Jushchenko did not explicitly state during the debate, but he has many times at opposition rallies—is not a government at all, but a counterproductive force working against society; it’s a parasite living off of society. It steals the people’s money—money they need for social programs—and fills its own pockets. Thus Jushchenko says about Janukovych that he is part of a government that is not a government at all but a criminal racket bleeding Ukraine dry.
By-the-way, we will talk about this assertion about wages and pensions later, for Janukovych contests this claim that they are lowest in all the CIS—and as usual, he does so without any real figures, while Jushchenko demolished his contestation with actual facts, figures, and analysis.
But back to the problems of the treasury—Jushchenko’s argument thus was that although he did not leave the treasury in perfect shape, he left it in much better shape then it was before he became PM, and furthermore, it had been his intention to work toward replenishing it, but he wasn’t given the chance! That is, it is important to remember that Jushchenko was fired after being PM for litte more than one year. Janukovych implied that he was fired because he was bankrupting the government (with the issue of Chornobyl being his only example of how Jushchenko was doing so), but Jushchenko retorted with saying that his first priority as PM had been to find the money to pay overdue wages and pensions and to start paying off some of Ukraine’s foreign debt, both of which he successfully managed to do, and only then move on to the long-term problem of rebuilding the treasury. But what happened in the end? Kuchma allowed him to continue with his reformist government insofar as he managed to pay the wages and pensions and make significant payments to reduce Ukraine’s foreign debt, but then all of a sudden Kuchma fired him. Why? Well, once the wages, pensions, and a portion of the debt were paid, the policy of rebuilding the treasury clearly meant long-term, wide-scale reform of the way the government did business, which meant seriously challenging Kuchma’s own (highly corrupt) sources of power in the government. More specifically, Jushchenko got into trouble as PM when his deputy-PM, Julija Tymoshenko, began to aggressively attack corruption in the energry sector, which is the base of the oligarchy's wealth and power. So who, really, is responsible for the treasury still being in a mess, other than Kuchma?
And who is responsible for the treasury still being depleted and in chaos, other than the man who has been PM for the past two years? Janukovych, however, claims that his government has been paying debts, too; debts owed mostly to society, such as money still owed to victims of Chornobyl, or such as when he just recently, curiously just one month before the elections, announced a raise in pensions. We will see what Jushchenko has to say about all this (and once again how Janukovych is trying to motivate Russians and those still nostalgic for the USSR against Jushchenko by politicizing the Chornobyl issue.)
Then to these problems of the treasury, one needs to add the problem of inflation, which also decreased state revenues, let alone having a harmful, and at one time a very devastating, effect on the average person.
Janukovych tried to make Jushchenko seem solely responsible for the inflation of the early years of independence, when Leoid Kravchuk was President from Dec., 1991-June, 1994, and Jushchenko was head of the National Bank (again, 1993-1999, when he became PM). He did so by stating that a barter economy became the dominant mode of economic behavior while Jushchenko was head of the National Bank. You see, it is widely known that Kravchuk was liable to simply print more and more money to try and replenish the treasury after he oversaw its pillaging (i.e., he was President during the first round of privatization in which oligarchs ran-off with millions, if not billions), as well as for money to flow into society to try and cover needs. The result was an inflation that eventually skyrocketed. As inflation took off, barter slowly replaced exchange until it reached the point of being the dominant mode of economic behavior in Ukraine in the mid-19900s (the old currency, the karbovanets, was rendered practically worthless by inflation, and interestingly enough, a whole genre of political cartoons emerged representing officials discussing how to represent all the zeros on subsequent printings of the karbovanets).
[This is from Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, about Kravchuk: "He failed to avoid corruption in the privatization of country's industry and promote effective financial decisions. Ukrainian annual inflation rates from 1993 to 1995 reached the world's highest record of 10000%. Millions of loans given by semi-government banks defaulted. This led to delays of many years in salaries for industry workers, teachers etc. The collapse of the Black Sea Steamship Company became the saddest symbol of Kravchuk's era. This global merchant fleet, the largest in the world (based mostly in Odessa), was covertly sold out to foreign companies, mostly for fake debts. Hundreds of sailors who hadn't received their salaries were trapped for years on board their vessels throughout the world. Kravchuk's own son was later accused of taking part in this fraud." And this bastard remains free and talking all of his nonsense to this day in Ukraine; makes me want to scream for lustration in Ukraine. . .I added this paragraph today, Nov. 19, 2005]
How Jushchenko fits into all of this is not clear to my mind—there are no doubt better informed people out there who could tell you—but here’s what I can say. He was appointed head of the National Bank in 1993 by Kravchuk, and thus was Bank chief during the period of skyrocketing inflation, when barter replaced exchange. I don’t know if the undisciplined printing of money that was one of the main causes of inflation occurred while Jushchenko was National Bank chief, or if the printing took place in the two years of Kravchuk’s presidency before Jushchenko became head of the Bank. And if it did take place while Jushchenko was head of the bank, I don’t know how much freedom he had; i.e., whether he had to do Kravchuk’s bidding. Nonetheless, it seems that the Head of a National Bank would have something to do with the printing of money and controlling or causing inflation, no? Well, in that case, whether or not Jushchenko can be blamed (only in part, at most) for the inflation, he can also be praised for rescuing the situation in 1995, with the much praised (in Ukraine and internationally) introduction of the hrynja and implementation of fiscal policy that dramatically reduced inflation and was a major factor in the stabilization of Ukraine’s economy and its getting started on a path toward recovery (as we have already discussed). One can also take Jushchenko’s word for it, that he didn’t have anything to do with the growth of the barter economy (i.e., with inflation), if one would like. That is, at the point in the debate when Janukovych made this accusation that Jushchenko was responsible for the growth of the barter economy, Jushchenko verbally baulked at and interrupted him, speaking briefly out of turn, saying “That (the rise in barter) had nothing to do with me—I was head of a Bank that deals with money, not barter.” Of course, this was not exactly right; as we have seen, he may have played a role in the inflationary pressures that resulted in such a steep rise in barter in Ukraine at the time, to the point that over half of all economic behavior was barter; he nonetheless played a central role in reversing this.
Interestingly enough, however, later in the debate and in response to Janukovych, Jushchenko had these two things to say to him: The state of Donetsk had the highest percentage of its economy being barter in all of Ukraine while you were governor there! And secondly, Jushchenko commented that he has never seen such low exchange rates for the hryvnja as those that obtain today, under Janukovych’s government (and remember that Jushchenko is a highly qualified observer of such matters, as an economist and one who understands quite well the way markets trade in currencies). Jushchenko counterattacked by stating that so far, under Janukovych, inflation is rising again and the Ukrainian currency is once again depreciating in value—all of which will be important in a moment, when we discuss Janukovych’s claim that his government has caused an increase in wages and has been able to increase pension (Jushchenko will say, yeah, sure, but prices have risen more than wages, evidenced in last October’s sudden jump in prices for basic goods in Ukraine).
But now I want to mention the issue of rhetoric: Jushchenko stated in various points of the debate (as well as at his political rallies) how it was shameful to let the hryvnja slide like this; how it is shameful that the government presides over a Ukraine with the lowest pensions and wages in all of the CIS; how it is shameful that the government in the past let oligarchs steal the people’s wealth during privatization; and overall how it is shameful that the government is keeping people trapped in an undignified poverty when Ukraine has such potential to be a prosperous nation. He kept saying, Ukrainians need a government that will uproot corruption. He kept stating that Ukrainians need a “clean” economy, a “clean” government, not one of bandits and ex-cons, but of principled leaders who care about the people. Thus, in numerous points of the debate, he emphasized how he would use money used by Kuchma for things like the renovation of the buildings of the presidential administration for social programs, to support education, healthcare (the healthcare situation in much of Ukraine is deplorable, unless you can pay for it), and for job creation. And Jushchenko at one point mentioned that perhaps the greatest measure of the success of a government is the number of jobs it created, and he stated that because of the policies of his government as PM, Ukraine saw the creation of 400,000 new jobs in 2000 and additional 700,000 in 2001. Contrast this to the ongoing situation in which over half of Ukraine’s population lacks steady jobs—and the fact that Janukovych had nothing to say about job-creation. (Thus, Jushchenko sounds much less like a neoliberal to me and more and more like a Keynesian social democrat all the time).
Janukovych also tried in various ways to present himself as a populist: he did so only partially by trumpeting the alleged successes of his government. But we will see that he highly politicized these successes in effort to make Jushchenko seem like he didn’t care about issues dear to the heart of say, Russians in Ukraine. Janukovych and everyone else like him are desperate to split the vote, to generate false divisions within Ukraine’s electorate by manipulating Ukraine’s multicultural situation, to split Ukrainians against Russians, to divide and rule. Jushchenko is at his most humane, most eloquent, and most passionate when he discusses the false divisions of the Ukrainian citizenry, and how he wants to build a pluralist, multicultural Ukraine for the benefit of all—for no doubt, Janukovych’s policies will in the end be just as harmful economically to Russians as to Ukrainians, because in the end we’re not dealing with purely issues of culture. In fact, we’re really dealing with a pluralist candidate who wants to help everyone in his country versus a candidate who politicizes cultural divisions in an effort to maintain the rule of a fantastically wealthy and corrupt oligarchy at the expense of everyone else, whether Ukrainian or Russian, or Tatar, or Jew, or any other minority. Everyday people care most of all about bread, and while Jushchenko talks about it in universal and pluralist terms, it's Janukovych who tries to force people to think in terms of khlib (Ukrainian for bread) or khleb (Russian for bread).
Thus, what Janukovych mostly did was attack Jushchenko, repeating claims again and again that Jushchenko was responsible for the people’s woes as a result of his alleged hand in the inflation of the early years and for emptying the treasury as PM. Janukovych kept asking, “What kind of populism is this?” and kept stating in various ways that, “The people won’t go back to those days; they don’t want you. They need a new kind of government that cares, etc. I represent the new wave, etc.”
About the successes of his own government, Janukovych claimed that his government has replenished the treasury and got the government rolling in a more productive direction. This was done, Janukovych claimed, by bringing more of the shadow economy into the light; i.e., government has succeeded in bringing much of the shadow economy under control, therefore filling the treasury with increased tax-revenues. By increasing the government’s ability to collect taxes, he claims his government has been able to lower the tax burden on already existing, legitimate enterprise, which then has also led to an increase in wages. Thus the government, with greater tax revenues coming in according to Janukovych, has been able to increase pensions as well as wages for those employed by the state. (An aside, but an important one: the authorities in Ukraine are very fond of using accusations of tax-fraud as an excuse for going after the businesses or for launching investigations of the personal finances of those who don’t exactly cooperate with them.)
In response to these claims of success, Jushchenko said the following:
About wages: wages have not risen as much as prices; we still suffer inflation; in fact, inflation is getting worse again. I have never seen the hrynja traded at such low levels, etc. Here are some statistics: before Janukovych became PM, the average Ukrainian family consumed 36 kg of meat and 63kg of salo (the most Ukrainian of dishes); today, average Ukrainians consume 22kg meat and 30kg salo. Whose policies are responsible for this? You say you lessened the tax burden on companies so that they could raise wages, but right now, prices are rising faster than wages. Who is responsible? Who’s been PM for the last two years? Look at what happened in October. Prices jumped. This is why we right now have the lowest wages and pensions in the CIS—inflation is outrunning wages and pensions again, so what good does your claim to an increase in wages prove (especially when it is a dubious claim)?
About pensions: Jushchenko simply tried to warn voters that this is not permanent. He pointed out that the raise in pensions occurred one month before the election, and more importantly, that the money for the increase in pensions is not in Janukovych’s government’s budget; and that it can therefore easily be taken back. And if one has been listening to what Jushchenko has been saying this far, one should also be getting the point that there are no solid economic policies on which Janukovych’s government stands. Jushchenko concluded with saying that the pension increase is cheese in a trap (“Tse sir!” he exclaimed).
About replenishing the treasury by bringing the shadow economy under better control: Jushchenko went on the offensive, saying that the shadow economy is still 54% of the economy in Ukraine, and (quite humorously, I thought), he asked Janukovych, refering to him by using his first name and patronymic, “Viktor Fedorovych, if you don’t have the facts, why do you bother to talk?” He then went on to say that only the government can be responsible for the persistence of the shadow-economy, that corruption in the government and unsound policy, and things like inflation and unemployment lead, to a shadow economy and a barter economy; and he implied that the oligarchy profits from having a shadow economy, with the statement that “Power is an umbrella for the shadow-economy.” He then went on to say that that the only reason Janukovych could claim to have replenished the treasury is because it has taken $5 billion in loans (from where, I don’t know). Thus, Janukovych has taken these loans, while at the same time relaxing taxes on “legitimate enterprise.” Hm. And Jushchenko pointed out that this will cause or is causing inflation, and that Ukrainians and especially their children will have to pay it back it. Janukovych also talks about fulfilling the budget, but he did it by taking loans, by increasing Ukraine’s debt. Thus, Jushchenko complained that it’s a false budget, that wage increases are false, that the pension increases are cheese, and that, in his words, “every 5th hrynja (in Janukovych’s budget) comes from the ceiling” which will cause inflation and very possibly continue the problem of Ukraine’s poor credit in the West.
So that its for now. I will send a second email about the final issue: that of Chornobyl, which I will use to discuss how it is the Russophile oligarchy that is manipulating Ukraine’s electorate, dividing into Ukrainian and Russian camps, into proWest and proRussia camps. And how it is Jushchenko that is the only multivectoralist and centrist, supporting a policy that is neither proWest nor proRussia but for the People of Ukraine of every background.
