President Leonid Kuchma believes that Ukraine does not need to be persuaded about the goods of democracy. Today, in his words, nothing threatens democracy in Ukraine. These are quotes from his interview with Interfax Ukraine agency. Asked about his attitude toward the leader of the Our Ukraine bloc Viktor Yushchenko’s initiative to create a special PACE Monitoring Committee in Ukraine to permanently study issues of the constitutional and political reforms and various political forces’ actions, President Kuchma said, “We don’t need to be persuaded of the advantages of democracy. We need democracy in Ukraine more than any West European country where far from everybody are aware that this country exists at all. There is nothing we strive more than leaving by European rules. We understand that only this can bring us prosperity.
“We gratefully take advice from the representatives of democracies that are more developed than ours. However, we can also feel very well where advice becomes intervention in our domestic affairs. I am not sure that everybody visiting us with mandates from, say, the European Council, can feel this boundary equally well.
“What did they tell us last time, for instance?” the president asked a rhetorical question. “The whole country could see that it was impossible to discuss and adopt the draft Constitutional reform in the normal order. It is public knowledge that this was made impossible by the opposition’s hooliganism. The minority wanted the majority to capitulate. The majority has found a way to vote for the project. They voted by raising their hands and also in writing.
“And now these people from the European Council come here and say, ‘You have to vote again. Otherwise, we will expel you from the European Council.’ They don’t want to know what had happened, what the whole Ukraine has witnessed.”
“In this connection I have to say the following,” Leonid Kuchma stressed. “First, we realize that the European Council needs Ukraine no less than Ukraine needs the European Council. This makes any ultimatums inappropriate. You should not follow the example of our opposition. Our opposition is only a decade old, while you are much older and should behave in a grownup way.
Second, nothing is going on in Ukraine that could strongly jeopardize democracy. Today domestic peace prevails in the country. The opposition’s attempts to break it are under control. There are no hostilities in Ukraine’s territory or any signs of public disorders. Our guests from the European Council are well aware that there are places in Europe where their activities would be more to the point. They know how many people who are really suffering and waiting for them.
“Third, the opposition is threatening us with some European sanctions, referring to their people in the European Council. They really shouldn’t say so. Our answer to this will be the answer that any country respecting itself would have given.
“This is what Ukrainian authorities will say first of all as soon as it sits at a round table with the opposition. I must say I hear such things from my supporters... This can be read in the messages I receive. People say, ‘They call you criminal regime, and you fuss over them, talking to them like they were serious people. What happened to your pride?’ I tell them, ‘My pride is in my strength. I know my strength, this is why I tolerate this,” the president said.
