The referendum gave a fresh impetus to debate on the second House in Parliament which, according to the “people’s” initiative, will represent regional interests. Now what is a region in Ukraine? The existing oblasts (set up artificially in the 1920s and thirties — Ed.) or some other territorial arrangement modeled on, say, the federal districts set up by the Russian president? How will the proposed bicameral amendments alter the current system of region-center relationships in Ukraine? Is it worth enhancing local self-government, rather than strengthening all those “regional interests”? In an interview with Lviv Mayor Vasyl Kuibida, The Day tried to ascertain this regional leaders’ stand in the matter.
The Day: Mr. Kuibida, how can a bicameral Verkhovna Rada help solve regional problems?
V.K.: All will depend on the functions assigned each house. If the second one is formed from among regional representatives and entitled, say, to draft and pass bills, this will turn into an important lever. Otherwise it won’t, of course.
I think that the Upper House should be elected by regional, territorial communities. The vote can be direct, meaning, for example, three candidates from every region in a single-seat constituency. It could also be indirect. For example, representative bodies of local self-government authorities select their three best nominees for the Upper House. Anyway, it is hard to say what type of voting Parliament will adopt for the Upper House.
The Day: What do you think is the biggest problem facing the regions?
V.K.: Independent Ukraine is nine years old, but we still have no public regional policy. We have just started discussing various concepts of it, trying to find positive aspects and eliminate shortcomings, developing a single regional political concept to be approved by Verkhovna Rada. Then all the regions and political parties will know what this regional policy is all about and see how it is implemented; what conforms to it and what doesn’t; they will see why financial currents in Ukraine are flowing one way and not the other. Today, just because we lack information and our own public regional policy we have distrust among the regions and mutual recriminations. For example, the eastern territories believe they keep the western regions afloat and the western ones claim all the money is flowing to the east. If and when we have a concept made public knowledge there won’t be room for allegations, hearsay, and accusations.
The Day: Regional friction for the most part relates to budget appropriations. There is a certain discrepancy; regional councils are made up of the same number of people from the regional center and, for example, a small agricultural area. Accordingly, when making budget allocations, the interests of the larger cities (that mostly act as donors) are disregarded.
V.K.: There is another important question we have to answer now. Precisely how would this regional policy be implemented there? How is one to build the organ of this regional policy as a managerial body? This is another issue to be discussed. Or maybe we should leave everything the way it is now? I mean there is a state administration and a regional council as a representative body expressing the joint interests of a given territorial community without having an executive body. Or we could adopt another model, for example, by introducing regional territorial communities. That way the representative authority would express the regional community’s interests and would be obligated to have an executive body, and the state administration would have to be stripped of its managerial functions, left only the controlling or supervisory ones (like the French prefect).
While a regional council represents the joint interests of a given territorial community, it would make sense for two or three deputies to be elected as representatives of that community to form a regional council. Yet under this system we would have to form the regional budget also from below.
Today, we have the oblast council that adopts the oblast budget, setting deduction quotas as national tax payments and duties for the cities. It is there that the confrontation between the regional council and the city ones starts and it happens everywhere. More often than not the regional center acts as donor, with all the others being recipients. At the same time, the regional center has the same number of deputies — two or three — in the representative body. And then the recipients’ collective egotism sets in; they are interested in taking as much money as they can lay their hands on, so budget allocation is automatically in their favor, not the towns of the regional center.
The Day: At a seminar dealing with regional political problems you mentioned that the oblasts could be made larger. How realistic is this, and how soon could it be implemented? Could it bring forth additional social problems?
V.K.: I don’t see much of a problem there, except perhaps for the local elite. The oblasts were not formed yesterday. They originate from the Soviet Union and were shaped proceeding from the tasks assigned Ukraine as one of the Soviet republics. Now the tasks and the situation are different. Logically speaking, we cannot use the same mechanisms in reaching set goals as were used fifteen years ago. I think that the boundaries of many regions should be revised from the standpoint of most effective management nationwide and implementation of our policy.
The Day: You must have thought this over in depth and come up with what you think would be the rational number of regions in Ukraine.
V.K.: Six or ten, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is reaching an understanding on the criteria when shaping these regions. If we come to terms on this issue it will be easy to determine their number.
I wouldn’t want my ideas to be regarded as absolute truth. I mean, I derived my ideas resulting from my personal studies. Answers to questions and an invitation to debate are very important things for our state. We must hear not only experts (economists, administrators, and politicians), but also people living in our regions.
INCIDENTALLY
Over a week ago Vasyl Kuibida thanked the work collectives that had nominated him in the Galicia constituency for Verkhovna Rada and stressed that in the difficult current situation he could not leave the city unattended. The Day’s Oleksandr SYRTSOV says the latest has it that the vacant Galician seat has attracted 25 contenders. Interestingly, there are four professional journalists among them. The competition promises to be the severest between two members of the Lviv “Diaspora”: Zinovy Kulyk, editor in chief of PiK magazine, and Taras Chornovil, his counterpart at the newspaper Chas. Among other eager contenders are Mykhailo Khvoinytsky, president of the local Mist [Bridge] Television Company, and Bohdan Vovk, chief editor of the people’s newspaper Za vilnu Ukrayinu [For a Free Ukraine], along with Anatoly Sadovy, chairman of the board, Lviv Regional Development Foundation who also has to do with the media, particularly Radio Lux and the newspaper Postup [Progress].
