Kyiv People’s Republic: A threat to Ukraine
By
the Editorial Board of VoxUkraine
It has been six months since the Maidan movements toppled President Yanukovych. Yet, there has been little progress in reforming the country. In this post, we summarize our obsevartions and dicuss how Ukraine should move forward.
Observation 1. There is a lack of sense of
urgency among players in Kyiv.
Ukraine
is in danger. There have been no radical reforms since the departure of
Yanukovich and after a brief pause the corrupt reactionaries are back and
“business as usual” is at full swing. High expectations of local
businesses for positive changes are waning quickly.
The government, the president, and the new and old political forces are talking
a lot about reforms, but instead are reading themselves for the new elections
and have put serious reforms on hold until the new distribution of power
becomes clear. There is a profound lack of sense of urgency among the players
in Kyiv. This can prove to be a death sentence for the sovereignty of Ukraine.
The
situation is very dramatic. The economy has entered recession and the projected
GDP growth is negative, systemic corruption has not been touched, the risk of
gas shortage in the winter is growing, foreign exchange market remains
turbulent endangering already heavily hit banking, and there is no feasible
lasting solution in sight for the war in the East. The capacity of the
executive power continues to be extremely limited, with incompetent bureaucrats
populating most of the offices, and their incentives have not been aligned with
that of the public. The public is increasingly disillusioned with the political
will of new government and the president to reform the country, as well as with
some of the new wave activists.
Observation 2. The parliamentary elections will
be used by the reactionary forces inside and outside of Ukraine to plunge the
country into an even deeper crisis.
The
looming elections will provide a fertile ground for the conflicts among
political forces. Unless the fragmented political groups and organizations that
brought about the fall of Yanukovich find a way to overcome their ambitions and
organize a joint frontal assault on the existing political and oligarchic elites,
the reforms will not happen and the risk of further political and economic
disarray will continue to rise. There is strong evidence that
old political elites continue to heavily use the all kind of dirty tricks to
boost the ratings, such as designing electoral system in their favor, pushing
forward populist initiatives, selling the positions in the party lists to the
businessmen, and offering popular civil society activists huge sums of money to
use their names in the election campaign.
Naturally,
the public sees through this pity scheming and will look for an outlet to
express their discontent. Coupled with dismal economic situation and the
unresolved military and humanitarian crisis, the demand for populist leaders
will be high. The tensions will be aggravated by the presence of many armed men in the country. Those fighting in Donbass will come back to
Kyiv with legitimate questions – why their friends continued to die and why
the new government did little to resolve the issue of its political and
executive incompetence.
More
importantly, incapable of winning in Ukraine using military, economic, and
political force, Russia will resort to stirring up frustration among the public
and the Ukrainian military forces with the lack of change in Ukraine, hoping to
create another political crisis or even a coup. If Russia succeeds and the
radical forces within Ukraine openly confront the new government, we see the
increasing risk of territorial disintegration of Ukraine.
Observation 3. The government’s and the
president’s strategy of waiting until after the elections will not work.
The
new government’s and the president’s strategy to avoid this scenario appears to
be involving the frustrated political
forces, which are at risk of radicalization, into the political process,
elections, and ensuring that they get some political power in the new
parliament. This is a wise approach. Nevertheless, it is not enough to win over
and pacify the key political players. The public will continue to be frustrated
by the lack of real change and by the deteriorating economic situation, and
will keep the president and, to lesser extent, the government responsible for
the failure of the revolution. The president and the government can try to
shift the blame to the parliament, which in fat sabotaged many initiatives, but
the public is unlikely to be swayed by these “detail.” The president has
received the vote of confidence during the presidential election and the people
of Ukraine expect him to deliver reforms and resolve the conflict in the East.
To survive in the office, the president has no choice, but to unite
with the government, and conduct radical
reforms now, before the elections.
What can be done?
Designing
and implementing reforms is not easy. The capacity of the executive power is
extremely limited not only by populist parliament serving vested interests of
large- and medium-sized businesses but also by incompetence. Many good reforms
are sabotaged by the current bureaucracy. This is natural in the country
governed by the phone calls from the top. During the times of crisis, the
chains of command become unclear, while the downside risk is high. The
understandable reaction of bureaucracy is to do nothing and wait until it
understands who will be the next ruler of the country. So, nothing gets done,
while tolerance of the society is waning threatening to trigger internal
explosion. We offer five suggestions on how to get the reforms going.
Suggestion 1. Undertake responsibility
The
president and the government should publicly
undertake joint responsibility
for reforms and push them forward before
parliamentary elections. The united team needs to find a way to introduce
necessary changes bypassing de-facto dysfunctional parliament that effectively
blocks many positive initiatives, for instance, by issuing special “reforms in
war” decree. Such step will likely be strongly opposed by parliament and called
“illegitimate”. However, given Ukraine’s imperfect legal system and the
on-going war in the east, plausible solution is not impossible to find.
Suggestion 2. Downsize the bureaucracy and
bring in a critical mass of new people.
The problem of the
country is the bureaucrats that populate the system of power, not the lack of
good ideas about what to do. New people in big numbers should come in the
government, while the government should be downsized drastically. New positions
should be open to everyone (post position publicly), the selection criteria and
the process should be transparent, the focus should be on merit, competence,
and not on connections or loyalty to the new government. The salaries should be
increased. We need high human capital to flow into the government. Enough good
people will figure out what needs to be done anyway and learn the institutional
memory from those in the civil service who survive the downsizing.
Suggestion 3. Do “low hanging fruit” reforms as soon as possible,
including deregulation and cutting down waste.
Given the level of
bureaucracy, distortions and corruption, it should be easy to bring tangible
improvement to the everyday life of ordinary Ukrainians. For example, reformers in Georgia fought very
hard with everyday instances of corruption (e.g., bribes to traffic police)
and, as a result, they got mandate to do more serious reforms.
Everything which can
be deregulated should be deregulated immediately. The country will not burn if
the firemen won't be allowed to take bribes for violation of the fire code.
There will be no cockroaches in cafes and restaurants, if their owners are no
longer worn-out by sanitary inspections. Procedures for starting, doing and
ending small business should be simplified radically, so that any person,
including those fired from the government due to the downsizing, could become a
private entrepreneur within several days. This will help to cushion negative
impact of economic decline and government downsizing on unemployment and reduce
discontent and tensions in the society. Great and detailed plan on deregulation
has been already developed (see propositions to the National Reform Council).
The government just needs to implement it.
Suggestion 4. Communicate reforms as often as possible.
President Poroshenko
has not had an open press conference since he’s been elected (President Obama
has a press conference on average every two weeks).
Other public officials offer equally rare or sporadic appearance in public.
Some of them write blogs and/or Facebook posts, which is clearly positive
development, but is not enough to inform the broad public. This staggering lack
of communication creates an informational vacuum where the public is unaware of
plans for reforms and progress in reforms. Maybe, the government is doing
something but the public does not know it and, as a result, is consumed by wild
theories of treason, incompetence and corruption. For example, the public
learned about the new policy regime of the National Bank of Ukraine (inflation
targeting) from the IMF memo! Nobody bothered to explain why inflation
targeting is a great idea (it is a great idea) and how it will deliver
macroeconomic stability. Instead, the public apparently panicked when the NBU
did not keep a fixed exchange rate and interpreted it as a sign of incompetence
and corruption. Obviously, such secrecy can be convenient in the sense that one
can mask/justify failures, but this approach can backfire and it also
undermines the whole idea of Maidan demanding more transparency and
accountability. Managing expectations by improved communication is a key tool
to push reforms through. In fact, Georgia reformers recognized that lack of
communication was one of their rare mistakes.
It is crucially
important that such communication is done by the owners of the reforms, the
president and the government. The
President and/or the Prime-Minister should do regular weekly briefings devoted
exclusively to reforms. They should explain to the public what has been done in
terms of reforms over the past week, what it means for an average Ukrainian and what/when
results are expected. The NBU Head should do the same, probably, not as often,
but regularly sending necessary signals to the markets and the public.
The authorities need
to create a web-portal gathering all reforms-related materials in one place,
including transcripts of their speeches,
reposts of blogs and Facebook posts, related legislation and explanatory notes
to people what to do and where to apply if introduced changes are sabotaged by
low-level bureaucrats. There is no need to spend budget money on this. Local
news agencies, think tanks and volunteers will be happy to help.
Suggestion 5. Look for multilayered, non-standard solutions.
The public should
press the government and private institutions to put enormous pressure on (if
necessary, fire) all the “reformers,” officials, etc., who lack the sense of
urgency or reality. One should encourage experimentation and
unorthodox ideas such as employing foreign nationals with established
reputation in key areas (financial regulation, courts, police, etc.), running
pilot projects in selected districts and oblasts (e.g., creating sheriffs and
electing judges in Donbass), developing and publishing rankings of experts and
government officials (e.g., the most corrupt/incompetent member of the Cabinet
of Ministers), luring back Ukrainian
professionals working abroad, etc.
Responsibility is a key word that many of our politicians are affraid of!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, its Kyiv, not Kiev!
ReplyDeleteThanks. Fixed.
ReplyDelete