What Poroshenko did and did not say? Content analysis of the President's speech

By the Editorial Board of VoxUkraine

President Poroshenko finally gave a speech.  In a long-awaited speech, he said 2,685 words in about 27 minutes. What messages did he deliver? Content analysis, a basic tool in psychology, postulates that people frequently mention topics they worry about. In a nutshell, if somebody cares about health, he or she will talk a lot about health directly and indirectly. By looking at the relative frequency of words, one can infer a person’s priorities. Using this insight, we can try to understand what is on Poroshenko’s mind.

To avoid personal biases, we translated Poroshenko’s speech using “Google translate” and calculated the frequency of words. Figure 1 shows the importance of the key words in the speech: larger font size reflects higher frequency of words

 

Figure 1. Original tag cloud of Poroshenko’s speech.

By  Irina Paliashvili (RULG)

16 September 2014 was a dramatic day in Ukraine’s history: the Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) in a closed, secret vote adopts the Law on special status of Donetsk and Luhansk separatist regions, providing for local self-rule and amnesty to the separatists-terrorists, who in turn are not amused and respond with the announcement that they have created the joint army of “Novorossiya” (Putin’s term meaning “NewRussia”), while Russia, which lobbied for everything the new Law provides for, welcomes it with the Russian Defense Minister announcing that Russia must deploy a “full-fledged and self-sufficient” army in the Crimean direction  Also today the Rada ratifies the EU Association Agreement, but implementation of the parts of it is delayed.  On top of that, the Rada, after several failed attempts and the threat from Speaker Turchinov to keep them locked inside until they carry out the final vote, adopts the Law on Lustration too!  One of the most odious Rada Deputies from the Party of Regions is caught by protesters outside the Rada and is thrown into the garbage bin, but after being extracted by bodyguards, he has no complaints: Hey, it’s all good, no hard feelings, Guys!   As my Swiss friend says: “Well, but the Rada always has been rather sporty!”.  Blogosphere exploded and my head is spinning, it is impossible to evaluate or predict anything anymore! 

Open Letter to the President and the Government of Ukraine

On September 9th VoxUkraine with the support of Kyiv School of Economics hosted discussion on "The urgency and priority of reforms in Ukraine." Discussion was held as an event in the series of VoxUkraine Clubs with participation of Roger Myerson, 2007 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics. Based on results, organizers prepared an Open Letter to the President and the Government with consolidated position of the participants.

To the President of Ukraine
Petro Poroshenko

To the Prime Minister of Ukraine
Arseny Petrovich Yatsenyuk

Dear Petro Oleksijovych!
Dear Arseny Petrovych!

Ukraine is in its most dire state since independence. The ongoing Russian aggression is claiming the lives of our best compatriots and bleeding the economy. Yet this is by no means an excuse to delay long overdue reforms.

The situation is on the edge, and failure to take immediate radical steps may lead to the loss of Ukrainian sovereignty. People and businesses are increasingly frustrated with the lack of change for the better. It is not long before they will start to question whether Ukrainian leadership really has the political will to combat corruption, institute the rule of law and improve the business climate. Moreover, the forthcoming parliamentary elections provide a fertile ground for political confrontation, which Russia may use to sow discontent and provoke another political crisis.

We praise your commitment to reforms and understand that you have to devote much of your time to military matters. However, in order to ward off domestic unrest and thwart Russian efforts to ruin our economy, we call on you to unite Ukrainian patriots and mount a joint effort to rescue the country by immediately launching radical reforms instead of waiting until after the parliamentary elections.

The list of required reforms is extensive and covers many areas that should be prioritized without procrastination. Yet we would like to emphasize that in addition to setting the priorities, another vital question is who will take up the implementation task. The primary task should be to overhaul the government bureaucracy in order to transform it into an efficient state institution staffed with a new generation of pro-European professionals. Reforms must be systemic and uncompromising, as half-hearted measures will have no definitive impact.

We stand ready to do our utmost to help accelerate reforms by engaging in a broad-based dialogue, contributing personally and attracting the best domestic and foreign talent.


Signatories:

VoxUkraine Advisory Board:

Roger Myerson, PhD, University of Chicago, 2007 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics

Gerard Roland, PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Jan Svejnar, PhD, Columbia University

VoxUkraine Editorial Board:

Olena Bilan, Dragon Capital
Volodymyr Bilotkach, PhD, Newcastle University
Dmytro Boyarchuk, CASE-Ukraine
Yuriy Gorodnichenko, PhD, UC Berkeley
Tymofiy Mylovanov, PhD, University of Pittsburgh
Veronika Movchan, Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting
Dmytro Sologub, Raiffeisen Bank Aval
Oleksandr Talavera, PhD, University of Sheffield

Invited to VoxUkraine Club

Vasyl Gatsko, Democratic Alliance party
Hanna Hopko, Reanimation Reforms Package civic initiative, Samopomich party
Semen Semenchenko, Donbass Battalion
Yegor Sobolev, Civic Lustration Committee, Volya party
Oleksandr Solontay, Institute for Political Education, Syla Lyudey party

Anatoliy Amelin, Association Aspen-Ukraine
Anna Derevyanko, European Business Association
Oleg Derevyanko, PhD Association Aspen-Ukraine
Daniil Pasko, PhD, Harvard Club

George Logush, PhD, Kyiv School of Economics
Mykhailo Vynnytsky, PhD, Kyiv Mohyla Business School
Sergiy Garmash, OstroV online newspaper
Alexander Noynets , edition “Petr and Mazepa”
Alexander Zholud, International Centre for Policy Studies
Victoria Podgornaya, Center for Social and Political Planning
Ivan Lukerya, Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research
Agnieszka Piasecka, Open Dialogue Foundation

Igor Buinyi, Democratic Alliance party
Denys Bigus, channel ZIK
Ostap Yednak, Reanimation Reforms Package civic initiative
Pavlo Illyashenko, Center for Economic Solutions, Open Dialogue Foundation, AYA Capital
Pavlo Kyshkar, Donbass Battalion, Samopomich party
Paul Kuchta, Center for Economic Solutions, Open Dialogue Foundation
Jaroslav Markevich, Donbass Battalion
Elena Minitch, Young Presidents Organization (YPO), Kiev Chapter, Democratic Alliance party
Andriy Pylypenko, Open Dialogue Foundation
Vira Prokura, Civic Lustration Committee, Volya party
Yuri Ryfyak, Democratic Alliance party
Volodymyr Vakhitov, PhD, Kyiv School of Economics
Pavlo Prokopovich, PhD, Kyiv School of Economics
Elena Besedina, PhD, Kyiv School of Economics
Anna Vakhitova, PhD, Kyiv School of Economics
Oleg Korenok, Virginia Commonwealth University
Ilona Sologoub, Kyiv School of Economics
Natalia Shapoval, Kyiv School of Economics
Sergei Kubakh, agriculture and land expert, Reanimation Reforms Package of Reforms
Roman Bakhovskyy, public activist

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.

Miles Apart And No Peace In Sight: Putin's D-Day Press Conference Versus Poroshenko's Inaugural

By Paul Gregory (Hoover Institution and University of Houston)

The United States and Europe do not know how to read Vladimir Putin. He is, for the Western mind, a strange laboratory specimen, who grew up in the KGB world of conspiracy and repression of enemies who are everywhere. We do not understand him and what he is really saying.

Any positive remark, no matter how small, turns Putin into a budding man of peace. (I am reminded of hopes that Bashar Assad would become a reformer). After Putin exchanged a few words with Ukraine’s president-elect, Petro Poroshenko, and with Barack Obama and expressed his liking for an (unacceptable) type of peace dialog, John Kerry spoke optimistically of “the possibility of Russia helping to get the separatists to begin to put their guns away, get out of buildings and begin to build Ukraine.” (See the Reuters report.) A Secretary of State should not engage in wishful thinking out loud.