The 2002 parliamentary campaign will be the hardest ever, primarily for the electorate as information will flood in; people will hear about deals and compromises, vague old and new party structures; political advertising on all the television and radio channels will say the right words on behalf of various sponsoring politicians. Even now the situation is confusing, even to one more or less familiar with our politics, owing to the existence of the still amorphous Tundra and Our Ukraine blocs. Against this background, media stories about yet another political formation simply do not stand to political logic. This time, The Day’s round table hosted People’s Deputy Inna BOHOSLOVSKA, (Labor Ukraine and Meritorious Jurist of Ukraine who kindly unveiled some of the mystery dubbed by Ukrainian journalists NLO, Ukrainian for UFO.
VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO IS NO NOVICE: HE COMES FROM THE SOVIET SCHOOL
The Day: The UFO information took everybody by surprise. Since you are going to vie in the elections as an independent group, it means that you are quitting Tundra? Why? Because you see no prospects there?
I. B.: The appearance of that information is a very interesting phenomenon, because not a single official statement has been made. It’s all hearsay and leaks. I think the time for such statements is still to come.
As for Tundra, I’ve never been a member. I’m with the Trudova Ukrayina (Labor Ukraine) parliamentary group, and I don’t intend to quit until there is a multipartisan association in parliament, like For a United Ukraine, Tundra, or whatever. Our project was conceived last winter, and I think an official announcement will be made late this month or early next.
The Day: A lot of politicians refer to themselves as new, as do Viktor Yushchenko and Yuliya Tymoshenko, rallying round themselves all those who consider themselves young reformers. Is there any dividing line between them and those you personally regard as new?
I. B.: Yes, of course. In the first place, all sixty members on our list are self-made people.
The Day: Granted, but Tymoshenko and even Yushchenko could also say they are self-made and let’s unite. What would you say?
I. B.: I will answer this on my own behalf only. I still consider Mr. Yushchenko an excellent person, a good financier, but a poor politician. Regrettably, he doesn’t have the required political experience and characteristics on a nationwide scale. We’re in a situation with the road to hell truly being paved with good intentions. He tries his best, yet the outcome is very bad, because he lacks knowledge about the realities of life and economy; he’s not an economist. A man with every psychological and physical hallmark as a new Ukrainian leader (because people have long wanted to have a handsome charismatic leader), but someone without the political skill, deep knowledge, and general culture becomes dangerous when in power. Besides, Mr. Yushchenko is by no means a novice, he comes from the old Soviet school. I also think that the kind of entourage he has isn’t new, precisely because he isn’t.
Yuliya Tymoshenko is certainly an excellent manager, one of a new kind and scope. If there are people in power capable of holding her uncontrollable political ambitions in check, she will certainly be very useful as a manager. It is also true, however, that a person might have a certain talent and that person is likely to get carried away, starting to believe that his or her talent is all-embracing.
The Day: We don’t have many women in high time politics: Slava Stetsko, Natalia Vitrenko, Yuliya Tymoshenko... also, Nina Karpachova and Siuzanna Stanyk. Ukraine is often described as a matriarchal country. Yet no woman has ever been a national leader. How do you picture such a woman?
I. B.: There are many countries where the mentality does not tally with the objective way of life. Ukraine is such a country. Of course, the Ukrainian mentality is rooted in matriarchy, while the way of life is patriarchal. Here is the wedge that will always cause discomfort. A man in power means a break with the matriarchal mentality of the country; a woman in power would mean a break with the way of life. However, this polarity has allowed Ukraine to keep afloat for a long time. We have the people, and we have the regime. The regime lives its own way, it has turned into a self-sufficient, self-perpetuating, and self-destroying organism. And the people lives totally separated from it.”
“Why do we have 80% of the economy in the shadow sector? Because people can manage their life much better and make gentleman’s agreements with each other much quicker than when the authorities step in. People want the interference of the state in their life reduced to a minimum; they want the state to be where it should be: defense, health care, public law and order, protecting the border, and promoting Ukraine’s economic interests in foreign markets. People no longer wait for the state to decide; they have started organizing their own life.
The Day: Do you expect any support from the powers that be?
I. B.: There will be no support, of course; the main thing is for the regime not to start destroying things. We have this bad tradition.
The Day: Who is the ideological leader of your project?
I. B.: No one and I do hope that none will surface before March 31.
The Day: Where do you expect support from business quarters?
I. B.: We count on medium businesses and over, but no oligarchs.
The Day: Could your party be described as one ruled by an idea and not by a personality, considering that it does not as yet have a clear leader?
I. B.: We must launch several figures. They will not be regarded as leaders on a nationwide scope, presidential contenders, or whatever. Any normal political force must forget about power plays under the circumstances. Of course, the future parliament will play an important role in naming the new president. Yet any political forces banking on this in the next campaign is sure to lose half the votes, because in the parliamentary race one must run for parliament. Khoroshkovsky believes that our project is oriented toward real life. We all expect it be a lasting one, that we will come out with party of an essentially different kind: modern and mobile, precisely the kind this country needs.
The Day: In other words, your project is like a master plan, meant much further ahead than 2002?
I. B.: I have an experience working in the constancy and I am sure of my potential. It’s the same with Khoroshkovsky. We’re now burning our bridges and we won’t try to be all things to all people. We’re creating a nationwide project, we’re demonstrating our awareness that it’s time to introduce an organized political force in Verkhovna Rada. We will support certain majority candidates, those sharing our idea and wishing to give the constituencies a try. These will be our people, in terms of ideology and style.
MYKOLA AZAROV WILL HAVE TO MAKE A CHOICE
The Day: Don’t you think that Mykola Azarov feels a little hurt with the parliament deciding that the post of the chief tax collector cannot be combined with party leadership? After all, the tax service is a powerful source of pressure. Why not by the same token set up an SBU, Internal Affairs Ministry or General Prosecutor’s party?
I. B.: I said that it was dualism two weeks after Azarov became the leader of the Party of the Regions, and that the situation was fraught with conflict, that it bode no good; that sooner or later he would have to make a choice.
Professional politicians are just forming in this country: we’ve never had them before; it’s always been combining jobs. I think it will be at least seven years before we have a more or less professional political corps; these politicians will sooner or later join some business groups and start serving business interests. Then we will have completely structured political system. Expecting politics to exist separately from the economy is wishful thinking.
The Day: It is also assumed that the process is not so much objective as artificial, in particular that the economic forces claiming power could well become the second phase of the redistribution of assets. Owing to the weakening of the central government, strong regional claims are expected during the elections. What can guarantee that your project won’t simply be used as political cloak by some business or another that will simply want to have its interests protected in the new parliament?
I. B.: Our project will certainly become a political force protecting small and medium business. We want to protect the kind of business that refuses to succumb to the oligarchs today and has proved its right as an effective manager to run an effective economy. None of the current political forces can give it this protection. That’s what makes me so confident in our project.
The Day: The president said recently that attempts will be made to influence the next elections from outside. Most likely he meant the two largest strategic partners of Ukraine: the United States and Russia. Are you aware of any of these showing an interest in your project?
I. B.: Yes, and in Europe as well.
The Day: Do you think it normal for another country to influence Ukrainian national policy? The president seemed to have in mind precisely such negative influence.
I. B.: Such influence is scandalous and we will have no part of it. However, I don’t think that Ukraine can be developed outside the context of world events. Ukraine must have a [political] force understandable to the rest of the world, because the West does not understand anything about the current Ukrainian political environment. They don’t understand even Yushchenko — and he seemed so understandable!
The Day: Could you offer any recipes?
I. B.: In 1996, I said that we could not sustain the kind of VAT we had, that it had to be changed immediately. I’m saying now that we will plunge into a terrible financial crisis in 2003, unless we replace the NBU head and the finance minister today. At a budget meeting with the president, I argued with Stelmakh (current head of the National Bank of Ukraine —Ed.). I said the dollar is about to drop, so where is our euro diversification? He replied that he didn’t want to argue with dilettantes like me. And then came September 11 and now we have a concealed budget deficit of almost seven billion. And there is Stelmakh saying that we have all the required resources to defend the hryvnia. People like that should be fired in two days. And so I want thirty people in the parliament who would know what they’re talking about.
WE ARE NOT OPPOSED TO THE PRESIDENT — NOR TO HIS OPPOSITION
The Day: Are you in opposition?
I. B.: In opposition to whom?
The Day: We are accustomed to the notion of one opposition against the president and the “existing anti- people regime” as the Communists claim?
I. B.: Of course. We are not opposed to the president nor to the opposition. It would be absurd to oppose a constitutionally elected president, considering that the law does not provide for any legitimate succession.
The Day: Don’t you think that your bloc running in the elections will help split the centrists?
I. B.: The niche we’re carving out has nothing to do with the centrists. It’s a fluid medium, I mean those 27- 30% of the population saying that they want to see none of the current figures elected. These people will have to make their choice at the polls, and this is not a conscious choice. I don’t think it’s the centrist electorate. Rather, it is green, a choice made for lack of anything better.
The Day: Which party will play the locomotive in your bloc?
I. B.: There’ll be no locomotive, just four equal parties.
The Day: Are these parties affiliated to any blocs?
I. B.: No, they each have an immaculate reputation.
The Day: Do you mean they are on hold, having just a name and registration number?
I. B.: No, not all of them. Some are registered and were marginal. Others were born with Ukrainian independence and tried to proclaim the ideas we’re proclaiming ten years ago. True, our society was not prepared to heed them at the time. These parties are alive, each with a membership of over 2,000.
The Day: Is the Constitutional Democratic Party (led by Volodymyr Zolotariov —Ed.) among them?
I. B.: Yes, and Zolotariov will be on the roster.
The Day: And the Liberal Party?
I. B.: There is the Liberal Democratic Party of Ukraine (led by Ihor Dushyn —Ed.) with a membership of 2,500 — and I mean not just members, but true Liberals. Trying to negotiate business with them seems to take years.
The Day: Who will finance your campaign in the countryside?
I. B.: One of the participants in the process.
The Day: We also have the Ukrainian Peasants’ Democratic Party (led by Valery Voshchevsky — Ed.). They seems to have come into money recently. Could this have been with your assistance?
I. B.: From what I know, UPDP came into funds about two years ago. The Chernihiv people started the ball rollings and they’re doing fine. I think they will be among our partners.
The Day: Everything points to your knowing the rules of the game in our political terrarium. How do you think the old-timers will react to your bloc?
I. B.: They’re reacting in a way you can’t even imagine, and this is considering that no formal announcement has been made, not a single interview given. Yet everybody is already out for the kill. In fact, this is the first sign that our project is necessary.
The Day: What will happen if the UFO crashes?
I. B.: I’ll make my firm the largest and best in Ukraine.
