The guest Den/The Day received yesterday is Oleksii Poroshenko, a young politician, a member of the Parliamentary Committee for Taxation and Customs. It was his first media interview in the capacity of a parliament member.
Oleksii does not look like one belonging to the “gilded youth.” He personally drives his car and has no guards. He is also open to contact and sincere in his judgments. Still, you could see that he weighs every word before answering – it is obviously clear to him that all that he has said will be examined through the prism of “the president’s son” rather than as “independent voice of a young politician.”
Asked by Den/The Day what doubts he had, taking into account a “reputation challenge” to participation of the president’s son in the parliamentary elections, Oleksii said: “It would be unwise, to put it mildly, not to doubt in this situation. As long as I can remember, I have always taken the following approach to things: if you think that something is right, do it. I have a Western education. I have the experience of diplomatic service at a state-run institution – I worked at Ukraine’s Consulate General in Shanghai, China. I saw how effective a state can and must be – when you can come to a governmental institution, receive a service in 15 minutes, and the state does not look at you as an ‘overseer’ and does not intend to rip more ‘taxes’ off you. In a word, I think this combination of unique experience and the inside vision of how our state works, without the illusion of whether certain changes can be made difficultly or easily, should be put into practice. But if you have this in your brain and still do nothing, you are also irresponsible.”
Read the interview in The Day’s next issue.
