Sometimes one has to doff one’s hat to the competition. One such case was Yuliya Mostova(ya)’s article in Saturday’s Zerkalo nedeli ( Mirror of the Week , published, unfortunately, in Russian only) outlining the various groups in President Kuchma’s immediate entourage — oligarch Oleksandr Volkov and his group in battle for influence vs. the Medvedchuk-Surkis tandem, Presidential Administration director Volodymyr Lytvyn (also not fond of Volkov), the team led by Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko (whose relations with the oligarchs are cool to say the least), et. al. And in the center of all is the President himself, whom the author compares to Stanislav Lem’s fictional Solaris, controlling everyone and keeping all the other bodies in motion.
Different forces have different sources of influence. For example, Internal Affairs Minister Yuri Kravchenko has proven useful (the author claims) because the police are both close to people and so totally corrupt that they can be induced to do anything Solaris needs, while the SBU, being only half rotten, is less useful politically. Medvedchuk and Surkis have a structure of real, albeit largely shadow, business structures behind them, while Volkov, who does not, is rumored to have some sort of “unbreakable connection.”
The only bright spot in this overall dismal picture is Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, who has no connections with the oligarchs. This “darling of the West” owes his post to the fact that only he stands a chance of getting Ukraine over its current debt mess. This means he will be able to accomplish only as much reform (which he, unlike most of the others, really does want) as the West categorically demands, above all forcing it to really cut the size and functions of government. I would suggest a specific time table for cuts, preferably on the basis of the last- in-first-out seniority principle (there is probably no other way to do it), exempting certain categories like computer personnel.
Officials are doing everything they can to keep this from happening. Take the so-called administrative reform. For example, the Ministry of Foreign Economic Contacts and Trade has been eliminated, but within the Economy Ministry a section on foreign economic contacts and trade has been created “on the basis” of the former ministry. Nobody but a few press assistants, typists, cleaning ladies, and maintenance men have been laid off, and it has really just came down to changing labels, while the structures remain practically unchanged. Both the Economy Ministry and its “new” addition will fight so that nobody else will be let go. And unlike the Premier, who was brought into this orbit because the other bodies found they could not do without him, for all his recent statements, past history shows that in his heart Solaris no great friend of reform.
