RC#43: The incredible shrinking nation

published in Eastern Economist #427, April 9, 2002

I came across the most curious bits of information about demographic changes in Ukraine since the introduction of the catastrophic political movement known as Bolshevism in 1917.

            One of these was an exerpt from something published in the Kyiv Times/Chas, nearly a year ago. Written by Anatoliy Mokrenko, the director of the National Opera theater in Kyiv, it was hardly a scholarly endeavor. But it was intriguing nevertheless.

            Mr. Mokrenko had got his hands the results of a 1926 soviet census, a process whose results are apparently still a state secret of Russia. He quoted in Russian from “Towards the Great Construction: a workbook for the third grade studies in village schools.” The text was published in 1931 by the State Educational Publishing House in Leningrad.

            “Before my eyes in this textbook are anything-but-secret ‘figures for diagrams,’” Mr. Mokrenko wrote. In particular, there was a table of figures for “How many residents of key ethnic groups live in the USSR.” It looked like this:

Russians              77,791,124

Ukrainians            81,194,976

Belarussians           4,738,923

Uzbeks                 3,904,622 etc.

            Mind you, Mr. Mokrenko points out, this is without counting Western Ukraine, Bukovyna and Zakarpattia, which only joined the USSR in 1939 and 1945.

            Now, it’s well known that Josef Stalin fought an ongoing battle with soviet census-takers. Their figures made the effects of his atrocities all too evident. He even offed the first folks who did a census in 1937 and then simply doctored the (similar) numbers the next lot came up with.

            But 1926 was before Stalin had secured his hegemony. It was the early, “idealistic” years of the Bolshevik Revolution. Still, I couldn’t believe that the number for Ukrainians could have have been 81 million. Maybe 31, or at the most 51, but not 81.

            So I called Mr. Mokrenko and asked him if I could take a look at this textbook he referred to.

            “I didn’t really see the original book,” he said. “It was a facsimile a friend in Sumy sent me.”

            “Any way I can get hold of this friend directly?”

            “No. But I’ve already written him myself to see the original book.”

            When I looked up the same figure in other sources, sure enough, it was given as 31 million. If I ever see that Grade 3 textbook myself, I’ll let you know.

            Mr. Mokrennko went on to compare numbers to the 1979 census, just over half a century later. It was published in a booklet entitled “Population of the USSR,” put out by Politizdat in 1983. Here the ethnic figures looked like this, along with my comparative percentages:

ethnicity            population            % of 1926

Russians            137,397,000            177

Ukrainians*          34,000,000            109**

Belarussians          8,604,000            181

Uzbeks                9,200,400            235

* excluding over 7 million western Ukrainians and taking into account their growth for the period 1945-1979

** standard 31mn figure used for 1926.

            Now, even assuming the 1926 figures was doctored – or simply typset incorrectly – the trend still requires explanation. Russia and Uzbekistan, despite war and repressions, managed to grow by 77% and 135%, while Ukraine grew at best 9%.

            Mr. Mokrenko wrote: “Where did Ukrainians go to during those 50 years? Were they destroyed or just ‘re-labeled’? Almost everybody else’s numbers doubled, while Ukrainians halved [he was using the 81 million figure]. Surely Ukrainians were breeding like any other ethnic group. But it turns out they were disappearing in catastrophic numbers in repressions, wars, artificial famines, assimilation, passportization, and russification.”

            Since Mr. Mokrenko’s speculations were not professionally grounded, I looked at a couple of other studies. The most current was presented last June at the European Population Conference in Helsinki. The author is Alexandre Avdeev from the Center for Population Studies at the Faculty of Economics of the Moscow State University.

            While progress in healthcare accelerated population growth everywhere in 20th century Europe, Avdeev writes, Ukraine seems a roadmap of the dramatic crises of the past. “Among all USSR republics, this country was one of the most severely hit by awful crises.”

Civil war            1917-20

Famine*            1921-23

Holodomor**       1931-33

World War II†      1939-45

Famine              1946-47

* especially Southern Ukraine

** artificial famine during collectivization; affected central and eastern regions the most.

† including Nazi occupation 1941-1944

And, of course, waves of repression and mass deportations in the 1920’s, 30’s, 40’s and 60’s.

            In fact, Avdeev writes, from 1931, when Stalin had total control of the Soviet Union, to 1954, when Khrushchev established himself, no vital statistics were published. So Avdeev’s team took it upon themselves to study demographic changes in Ukraine for the period 1926-1965. To determine births, deaths and migrations, they used official records, studies on under-registration, historical works on spontaneous or forced migrations, gulag and deportation camp statistics, and so on.

            They projected, using the base figures available and normal population trends, where the population should have grown to, and the implication of those changes for mortality rates, among others. What they came up with is horrifying.

            For the great famine or Holodomor of the early 1930’s, life expectancy for a Ukrainian male fell to 7.3 years, and female expectancy to 10.8 years.

            During the height of WWII, mortality did not reach quite such a trough, but it lasted much longer. These same indicators fell to 14 for males and 21 for females.

            This certainly supports the idea that Ukraine may have lost more people in the 20th century than any other nation in Europe. But these are numbers no one should have to sleep on. •

–from the notebooks of Pan. O

RC#42: The ballot that cannot be stolen

published in Eastern Economist #426, April 2, 2002

Oh irony of ironies! In China, the rich have taken to the streets in protest. Ukraine doesn’t even have a golf course, and Chinese nouveau righteous are upset that their golf clubs are at risk.

            The Economist just had a little piece about people who bought pricey properties in an exclusive development in Beijing. The developers tried to screw them. They were going to replace the planned recreational land and facilities with more residential buildings. That way, they could sell even more apartments and make even more money. In other words, they were going to increase the density and remove the frills that made people want to pay $60-120,000 per flat in the first place. Call it dilution of estateholder value.

            The scam is not the point – happens every day. The protest is. Those people got out there with placards and bats and started causing mayhem!

            And they got their way.

            Of course, they also established an owners’ committee and hired a good lawyer to take the case to court.

            And they got their way.

            “As long as protesters focus their attention narrowly on the issues that concern them, the government has been willing to listen,” Dali L. Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago was quoted in The Economist as saying. “Such day-to-day demands by ordinary folk will continue to make China a better place.”

            Of course, China is the land of Tienanmen Square and the persecuted Falun Gong. Protest and the risk of person for the sake of a cause are hardly something new. Standing up for what you believe is a tradition, whether you were a communist in 1941 or a democrat in 1991. The Chinese have always done a lot of voting with their feet, whatever the cause, good, bad or ugly.

            The Poles and Hungarians, two of Ukraine’s nearest neighbors, also have a modest and sometimes effective history of public protest. In the last 10-12 years, even downtrodden Romanians and hard-core Serbs said enough is enough and removed their murderous leaders.

            Here in Ukraine, however, decade after decade goes by, abuse after abuse, and the people are mum. Yes, the kvetch factor is very high, but no one raises their head in public protest.

            The fact is, Ukraine has no history of public protest. The closest it ever got was during the kozak era. The kozaks who voted a hetman in could also put on trial and pike the guy if he didn’t satisfy them. Which they did in 1630 with Hrytsko Chorniy.

            But the average Ukrainian was usually at the bottom of the social totem pole, whether under the Poles or under the Russians. There were no Peasants’ Revolts or Glorious Revolutions, no Black Sea Tea Parties or General Strikes. When Ukrainian farmers and peasants refused to collectivize in 1930, they forgot to organize. So they were starved to death by the millions on their tiny bits of devastated land.

            In other words, organized protest has not been a part of the vocabulary of Ukrainians for a very long time.

            Yet public protest is important – what Americans like to call, voting with your feet. Using the strength of numbers and risking somebody’s wrath in order to get something changed. It works with supermarket chains. It works with landlords and developers. It works with government agencies. Sometimes it’s the only way to effect change.

            This is what made last year’s tape scandal such a big deal.

            Suddenly, Ukrainians were mobilized. Or, at least some of them were and the rest took notice. The protest was eventually squelched. For one thing, it wasn’t narrowly focused, as Mr. Yang recommends.

            Still, I think there was change as a result.

            The guys at the top, all of them, are worried.

            Not scared – that would be an exaggeration – but definitely worried.

            Why else would they agree to a better election law? Regardless of how flawed it was, the first time round, it’s been implemented.

            Why else would the television channels be buzzing with debate? The most obscure candidates have managed to get themselves air time and column inches.

            If it was really a done deal, would various tycoon-class politicos try so hard to improve their images? Would the president need to set up a bloc that is obviously “his” political party? In the past, it was good enough to have a “party of power” – regardless of its name.

            A lot of people think that today, more than ever, Ukraine is on its way down in a handbasket.

            I disagree. Politically, Ukrainians are struggling uphill, not down. They’re going against a very, very long grain. But they are slowly going against it.

            Maybe sometime soon, people here will vote again with their feet, as well as with their ballots.

            They could protest the squandering of millions on cheesy sculptures and arches. Or they could get a neighborhood protest going over parklands being destroyed for private construction.

            It’s the day-to-day ordinary issues that can sometimes set bigger change in motion.

            Besides, wen you vote with your feet, there’s no mistaking what you voted for.

            It’s a ballot no one can steal. •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.

RC#41: Po' Polls

published in Eastern Economist #425, March 26, 2002

“Poll reveals links between Ukrainians, bribery and civil servants,” the Deutsche Presse Agentur reported in mid-March. I grabbed the report, thinking it might tell us how people coded telephone messages, which bars they hung out in to cut their deals, and where the drops were.

            But I was sorely disappointed. In fact, I was quite annoyed.

            “Nine out of every 10 Ukrainians has paid a bribe to a government official or knows someone who has,” was the headline-grabbing first sentence.

            Let me say up front that I don’t want to disparage the Ukrainian Center of Economic and Political Research. I have no doubt that they do honest, professional research. I’m sure they do all their screening, polling and compiling using the most modernized, standardized and errorized methodology.

            What’s more, I don’t doubt at all that their numbers are more-or-less right.

            I just don’t like how they reported on them.

            Take the sensationalistic first sentence. If there is a family of 5-6 people and the one who’s the driver paid off a traffic cop, the remaining 4-5 would definitely know about it.

            I just don’t remember when “knowing someone who said they did something” constituted serious evidence of that something. In court, this is called hearsay. And hearsay is usually discounted as evidence.

            The report then admitted that “a whopping 49% of Ukrainians” – leaving out the critical term “polled” – “had personally paid cash to state employees.” The remaining 40% (polled) were “personally familiar with an incident, usually concerning a family member, where a civil servant had accepted cash in exchange for violating the law.”

            Further on, it turns out that “Ukrainians widely consider traffic cops” (and the boys who handle the payment of street-side parking fees, if you ask me) the most common kind of “bribester.” Suddenly, the findings lose much of their punch.

            Before I go any further, I have a confession to make.

            I know a lot of Ukrainians who have paid cash under the table. To get their kids into a particular school. To get their cars past the annual inspection. To get specialized or speedy medical treatment. To get an advertising agency to work with them. To get a decent bed in a hospital. To pay less than the full traffic fine. To get a visa to the US. To get out of going before a judge to pay a fine. And so on.

            Sometimes there is little choice. Others offer cash themselves. Lots of it has to do with jumping queues, getting around official rates, or speeding up procedures.

            Some of these payments are direct. Some are in the form of “contributions” of one kind or another.

            I even know some foreigners who have done the same. To get a project approval or a license. To get out of paying a discriminatory rate that is more than twice what locals pay for the same service. To avoid going before a judge. And so on.

            But let’s get back to what this poll admits is the most common situation where blood money exchanges hands in Ukraine: with traffic cops. Personally, in nearly five years of driving around this country, I’ve never been asked to pay a bribe or to settle “unofficially.” Whenever I’ve been fined on the spot (this practice was dropped in May 2001), I’ve always been given a receipt for the full amount – a whopping UAH 17 ($3.20 at the time).

            An American friend of mine, who did a lot more driving than most people I know, told me once, back in the States: “If I can engage a cop in a conversation, he’ll never fine me.”

            I took his advice to heart here in Ukraine. Most of the time, I’ve argued, kidded, wheedled, pled, or smiled my way out of fines. Including one that would have cost me about US $100 because I failed to recognize on a dark rainy night that a big bus following me down the road and cutting me off was a cop trying to ticket me! In the end, this guy fined me a more reasonable Hr 20 for a minor violation. I gladly paid it and got my receipt.

            No cop has ever asked me for a kopek on the side. They’ve been unbearably rude at times, but no baksheesh.

            Of course, my lone experience doesn’t constitute proof of anything much, either.

            But if the perception is correct, that Ukraine is Europe’s “most corrupt country,” below even Russia and Albania, as Transparency International says, this UCEPR poll is hardly a good example of hard evidence.

            For instance, which 2,033 Ukrainians were polled? Judging by the main suspects – traffic cops, judges, college profs – no rural Ukrainians were polled. In fact, I’m willing to bet most polls don’t touch many parts of the population. People without phones, people out in the countryside, people in hospitals or sanatoria, housebound pensioners. This survey, like most, was based largely on working age, urban Ukrainians.

            What you end up with is this: “Nearly one in two urbanites aged 18-60, representing 30% of all adult Ukrainians, have paid a cash bribe to a government official, usually a traffic cop.”

            It’s the truth. But it sounds a lot less impressive.

            There was a reason for this. The UCEPR seems to have had an agenda. “The poll’s results contradicted claims by members of the government running for re-election to parliament that reports of corruption were exaggerated.”

            Unfortunately, the way this poll was presented only confirmed the claims of these politicians – that reports about corruption are exaggerated. I agree. •

– from the notebooks of Pan O.

Note: 12 Ukrainians in Kyiv ranging in age from 19 to 38 were polled for this piece. The margin of errror depends on how many of them fibbed.

RC#40: Semper Fi, Sir Kuchma!

published in Eastern Economist #424, March 19, 2002

Just this week, there was a grand celebration of Ruslan Ponamariov, the young Ukrainian who became the FIDE world chess champion. There everybody was, dressed to the nines at Palats Ukraïna in Kyiv, excited that this shaggy-haired blond kid who was one of their own had – out of the blue – got to the top.

            At the time of the FIDE tournament Jan. 23 in Moscow, none of the 128 representatives from 50 countries imagined that two young Ukrainians, Vasyl Ivanchuk and Mr. Ponamariov, would reach the finals – let alone that one of them would win [see RC#33]. For Mr. Ponamariov, it meant half a million bucks and a medal from the president.

            At 18, Ruslan Ponamariov was the youngest world chess champion ever.

            Of course, a week hadn’t gone by before the Spaniards organizing a Super Tournament in Linares woke up and smelled the coffee. On Dec. 24, they had invited Ruslan Ponamariov to their competition for early March. At the time, they hadn’t thought much of it. Mr. Ponamariov was just “another Russian chess freak” from Ukraine.

            Mr. Ponamariov turned them down. He had been asked to open a chess school in his home town of Kramatorsk on the same day. Also, his parents thought he was too young for such a high-powered meet.

            But this no-name kid was now a world champion. Not only that, he had money.

            So on Feb. 1, the Linares organizers gave Mr. Ponamariov an ultimatum. 48 hours to “rectify the situation” or they would sue him. For a cool million!

            It was a no-brainer. Mr. Ponamariov agreed to go, after all, and the opening in Kramatorsk was postponed.

            The Spaniards were in a win-win situation. As long as he showed up, it meant free extra publicity. If he didn’t and they sued, they’d have extra cash for a high-flying reception on the Salvador Dali.

            On Mar. 11, Ruslan did even better. He proved his Moscow title was no fluke. Drawing in the last game with India’s Vishvanatan Anand, he came in second at Linares. Seasoned Russian champion Garry Kasparov won the title.

            So you might forgive FIDE President Kirsan Iliumzhynov this week for waxing a little Shakespearean. “The birth of the next Chess King, Ponamariov, is a great event,” he intoned at Palats Ukraina. Everybody clapped and cheered. There were even a few wolf-whistles. Ruslan blushed and tossed back his hair.

            Mr. Iliumzhynov then announced grandly that Ruslan had been given a three-room apartment in Elista, Kalmykia. In case you didn’t know, Kalmykia is a Russian province situated on the northern shores of the Caspian Sea, not far from the Volga River. Now, maybe if it had been a seaside house in Sochi, this would have been something to write home about. Honestly, I just can’t see Mr. Ponamariov taking weekends off to sit on the Caspian Sea looking at distant oil slicks and humming “Yo-ho, heave ho.”

            Nevertheless, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house as the skinny blond kid from Kramatorsk took his bows.

            But then the spotlight was abruptly shunted off and the Ruslan Ponamariov show was over.

            The World Chess Federation had some sucking up to do.

            The drums rolled, the spotlights dance.

            Mr. Iliumzhynov announced with a fluorish that he was now going to award Leonid Kuchma, the President of Ukraine, as well. As though Mr. Ponamariov’s achievement was somehow thanks to a head of state who had probably never heard his name prior to Jan. 23.

            It seems that the Presidential Council of the World Chess Federation had decided to bestow Mr. Kuchma with an honorary chess title. Mr. Iliumzhynov revealed that he had been made Grand Knight of the Chess Kingdom. As a sign of this honor, Mr. K was presented with a Kalmykian horse.

            But that wasn’t everything. The honorary birthday boy had more coming to him from Mr. Iliumzhynov’s bag of goodies.

            Apparently, when he was 20, back in 1958, Leonid Kuchma had worked in West Kazakhstan oblast, near Pavlograd. In any case, Mr. K had earned a Komsomol award back then.

            In the Soviet Union, the Komsomol – the communist union of young people – was a kind of universal Scout organization for everybody over 14. Only you couldn’t get a good job or get into a good school without belonging to it. The Komsomol became the Old Boys network of the Soviet Union, much as the Parisian institute that graduates all senior government officials in France. And senior Komsomol members became what is known throughout the FSU as the nomenklatura: oligarchs and top officials. They run the show – just like their scandal-ridden French counterparts.

            So Mr. Iliumzhynov presented Mr. Kuchma an award that had been supposedly waiting for him for 44 years. An honorary Komsomol award called “For Developing Virgin Lands.”

            I know Kalmykia is out there in the boonies, but I can just imagine what “virgin lands” a 20-year-old kid might have been developing. Along with umpteen other kids his age, no doubt.

            I just don’t think it compares to Ruslan Ponamariov’s achievement.

            But guess which event took the headlines in the local wire services? You got it. Mr. Kuchma’s award – which just happened to be taking place at a party for Ruslan Ponamariov, the youngest World Chess Champion on record. The one who brought Ukraine the real glory.

            All I have to say to that is, “Semper Fido.” Arf, arf. •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.

RC#39: Fantastic Voyage

published in Eastern Economist #423, March 12, 2002

Europe’s getting big on corridors. In fact, there were two meetings on the subject this past week. The EU alone is planning 10 corridors. Then there’s TRACECA, the Central Europe to Central Asia corridor.

            This is what the US did in the early Sixties. They built a vast transcontinental network called the National Defense System. Prior to that, it was mostly a viper’s tangle of two-lane highways that made travelling worse than going to the dentist for a root canal.

            The 360-mile trip from Montreal to Toronto took 12-13 hours in 1962. You could rarely go over 40 mph and passing was mostly impossible. In 1960, Canadians had to drive through Minnesota to get from Quebec to Manitoba. That’s sort of what it’s like in Ukraine today. It takes about 8 hours to drive to L’viv,* which is only 300 miles from Kyiv. Yet the Montreal-Toronto trip takes just over 5 hours by car today.**

            The resulting web of interstates opened places like Wyoming and its jackalopes to the world of truckers and trailers. It put Idaho and Lake Superior on the map.

            Everybody in Ukraine loves to remind everybody else that Ukraine is on the crossroads of everywhere. But everybody else perceives Ukraine as terribly far away from everything.

            Wrong. Ukraine is only one time zone away from France. It’s about 630 miles from Kyiv to Vienna. This is much less than Washington to Chicago, Edmonton to Vancouver, or Baltimore to Birmingham. And it’s about the same as Vienna to Paris.

            The entire trip from Paris to Kyiv is like driving from Detroit to Denver or Buffalo to Miami. Except that you get to cross at least three countries on the way – Poland, Germany and Belgium, or Hungary, Austria and Germany, or Slovakia, Czechia and Germany – take your pick. Going the other way, this same distance takes you from Kyiv to Baku.

            It’s a two-day trip by car – if you had something like I-80 or Germany’s Autobahn to do it on. You don’t, but that’s about to change.

            Now, the Detroit-Denver trip, as any retired American in an RV will tell you, is “flatter ’n a pancake,” with nothing but Motel 6s and “attractions” like Corn Palaces on the way. If it weren’t for the roads, no one would do it.

            And that’s the point, ain’t it?

            If you had the roads, the Kyiv trips would take you through beautiful mountains and rolling rivers, past thousands of years of European and Caucasian history and half a dozen famous towns.

            Going east, you could see exotic places like Sochi and Sukhumi on the Black Sea through the Caucasus to Tbilisi. Or you could go through Russia’s sun belt, Krasnodarskiy Krai, to Chechnya and through the mountains to Tbilisi and Baku.

            The ultimate destination is the California Dream of the 21st century – China.

            Imagine the possibilities.

            You pack up your sturdy, souped-up 2015 Daimler RV. It’s got the built-in wide screen satellite TV with Internet and PlayStation 5. There’s a kitchenette with microwave everything, a UV shower (doesn’t need water) and compact super-foam bed. Photosensitive windows to climate control your interior. The whole hog.

            You log your car computer onto the TRACECA mapping system. Going through Kerch is somewhat out of the way. Besides, you’ve been to Crimea for the weekend twice this year. The war in Chechnya is a distant memory and the new international highway has given Chechens access to more than just Russia. Oil transit has brought them billions to rebuild their mountain economy. Nowadays, they’re billing Chechnya as a tourism hot-spot, complete with mountain day-trips and a Grozny Battlefield Museum. So you decide to do Kyiv-Rostov-Grozny-Baku.

            The Krasnodar Valley is on the way, where there are U-pick berry farms and vineyards. Somebody told you there’s a great new microbrewery not far from Stavropol, so you’ve decided to stop along the way and sample the goods.

            You’ve heard great things about Georgia, starting with John Steinbeck’s Russian Journals, so Tbilisi is a major must-see on the way. Georgian hospitality is legend and you can’t wait to see the Caucasus, especially the place where Prometheus was supposedly chained to his rock for giving humans the gift of fire. You’ve always been a mythology nut, so this will be the highlight of your trip.

            Baku’s only 300 miles east of Tbilisi and the road cuts through some impressive passes. Baku used to be a nasty mafia town under the post-communist guard, but Geydar Aliyev’s grandson has been changing things since the old man died in 2003. Oil revenues have been trickling down to the average Azeri and life is better than anyone can remember. Best of all, the refineries have been complying with EU standards in hopes of accession some time in 2020. So the air is pretty good now.

            The real reason you’re doing Baku is that you want to check out the new high-speed ferry to Krasnovodsk, in Turkmenistan. Word is that the Caspian has been really cleaned up and the sunsets are spectacular over this huge inland sea.

            If it looks as good as they say, you might try the whole trip next year: Krasnovodsk, Ashkhabad, Kabul, ending at Kashgar in the Tien Shan mountains. In China.

            There’s even a special deal for tourists that would get you back home from there: ship-and-fly for the same as the cost of gas one way.

            Imagine the possibilities! •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.

* if you care about your axles and don’t drive a Merc 600.

** keeping to speed limits.

RC#38: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, Ukraine-style

published in Eastern Economist #422, March 5, 2002

Back in December, long before the official election campaigning began, I flagged a car to a downtown meeting and was picked up by a young man in his Zhyguli. As usual, things got around to politics. My driver’s brow furrowed and his fists tightened around the steering wheel.

            “My wife works for City Hall,” he said.

            Mayor Omelchenko, of course, had just announced his new party, Yednist. I wondered what changes that might bring about. Would she have to lick stamps for his campaign instead of dealing with her usual tasks, as sometimes happens in the US or Canada?

            “She got a little piece of paper to sign. Actually, she got two pieces of paper,” he explained. “The first one was an application to join Yednist.”

            “And the other?”

            “A letter of resignation.”

            “So if she doesn’t join, she’s fired?” I said in disbelief.

            “That’s correct,” he said. “All the employees at City Hall got the same deal.”

            This is what Ukrainians mean by “administrative resources.” What I call “administrative leverage.”

            At the time, I only half-believed what the young man had told me. But the evidence is mounting.

            Not long ago, Oleksandr Moroz wrote an editorial in Cilski visti, Ukraine's answer to the Village Voice (only it really is a farmers' rag), called, “Alone with your conscience.” He mentioned the same thing, with reference to President Kuchma’s plagiarizing Chief-of Staff Volodymyr Lytvyn. A kind of Jay Leno without the jaw, Mr. Lytvyn just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Leverage, what leverage? I don’t see anyone suing us –?”

            Mr. Lytvyn heads the list of Za yedynu Ukrainu! The bloc boasts among its ranks Premier Kinakh, ex-premier Pustovoitenko, Tax Czar Azarov, former president of PrivatBank Tyhipko, and other similarly modest fellows who have absolutely no administrative clout, I'm sure.

            “From Severodonetsk to Periaslav, Pervomaisk and Chudno,” wrote Mr. Moroz, “managers in local administrations have been warned, ‘Vote this way, or your ass is grass.’ And they’ve been told to do the same to their underlings.” Turns out, Mr. Omelchenko was only getting a jump-start on things.

            The Committee of Ukrainian Voters confirmed suspicions Feb. 27, reporting “complaints of mass and systematic abuse of their positions by local officials on behalf of the Za yedynu Ukrainu! bloc and individual candidates.” In fact, the heads of government departments, agencies and enterprises often make no effort to hide their favoritism, the committee noted. “Those candidates who do not support the Executive are confronted with a variety of obstacles of both an administrative and criminal nature when trying to campaign publically.”

            Playing into Mr. Lytvyn’s hands, however, the CUV concluded, “There is not enough evidence of a deliberate conspiracy in this, either within the ZYU bloc or within central executive bodies.” This implies that, under Ukrainian law, any kind of graft and abuse of office has to be the joint effort of at least two officials in order to qualify…?

            Still, CUV Chair Ihor Popov thinks the use of administrative leverage could backfire. “Nationwide, the ratings are already making it clear that this could cause a backlash among voters.” Unfortunately, this same leverage would lead to victory in first-past-the-post districts.

            What bothers Mr. Moroz and me is the fact that no one has the guts to stand up to this abuse, to challenge their bosses.

            “The district manager who’s twisting your arm over the election is doing it to keep his position,” says Mr. Moroz. “He’s convinced that ratings don’t mean a thing, that all the sociological analysis on television is a lie, in preparation for the Big Lie on March 31… But where are the guys who had the job before him?”

            In the days of one vote, one party, it didn’t much matter. The communists always got 99.9%. But things have changed. If anybody really had the fix on the election, they wouldn’t bother with all this administrative hoopla, would they? It’s a lot of bother, if you can quietly let everyone vote and then toss the ballot boxes into the Dnipro.

            That’s Moroz’s main point. “Why blame those at the top, if you’re the one who put them there in the first place?”

            There could be a message there for Mr. Yushchenko as well. Politychna dumka [Political thought], a journal that has researched the political process in Ukraine for nearly nine years, calls Nasha Ukraina an “ethical opposition.” NU refuses to challenge the president’s actions or the legitimacy of the current regime – in the hope that there will be a voluntary change of the guard at the top.

            “Voluntary change” is not in the vocabulary of any known politicians on this planet since the start of written history (and probably before that as well).

Meanwhile, one Election 2002 footnote has played its course. Olena Solod, a 28-year-old from Zaporizhzhia, applied to the ZAHS last November for an official ID change to the name Osama Bin Laden [see RC#28]. She hoped to open a Taliban embassy and run for parliament under the moniker. This week, her request was turned down.

            “The police department’s official denial,” says Viktoria Kuzmina, head of the Kommunarsk ZAHS, “was because she’s taking on the name of someone currently being hunted by Interpol. Anywhere Ms Solod might be required to register, in hospitals, police stations or hotels, her new name would cause a stir. Once the Nº1 terrorist is captured, Ms. Solod can apply again.”

            “It’s a real joke,” says Ms. Solod, who is now suing the ZAHS. “They’re afraid of confusing me, a woman, with the real Osama Bin Laden.” In the event, she has missed the deadline for registering in this election.

            Hopefully, Mr. Moroz's message will have reached Ukrainian voters by the time of the next presidential election: “You get a decent government when you yourself start voting for decent people.” •

–from the notebooks of Pan O, with a tip of the hat to Hunter S. Thompson, Cilski visti, UNIAN and Fakty

RC#37: Words, Words

published in Eastern Economist #421, February 26, 2002

It’s been fun getting into the swing of the 2002 VR election. The process, for one thing, seems a bit tidier than in the past. They actually made everybody wait until Feb. 9 before they could leave their starting posts.

            Of course, the BS was flying fast and furious even before that. Those with media access didn’t have too much trouble getting around that limitation in a variety of ways. Some became sponsors for popular film programs, serials and other prime-time shows. Still others did “social advertising,” portraying everyday Ukrainians in their struggle to survive.

            But I have to give it to them. The ways in which they are promoting themselves is slick. Take Mayor Omelchenko. He came out in a cool black-on-black outfit that very first day, at a Saturday night concert for teenagers and put the pitch for both St. Valentine and his party, Yednist. “Don’t forget those great virtues,” he declared: “Faith, Hope, Love – and Unity!” Unity, of course, being “yednist” in Ukrainian.

            Patriotic fever has really overcome the political arena in Ukraine.

            Yes, there are still the dinosaurs of the soviet past – the Communists, the Socialists, the Peasants, and a few permutations thereof.

            And you have the post-independence nouveaux politiques – the Liberals, Republicans, Conservatives, and Social Democrats (in at least four incarnations). Most of them are buried in one electoral bloc or another – for now. Chances are, the day after the election we’re going to hear a massive chorus of “April Fool!” as the bloc leaders find themselves once again with only the five guys they started out with last fall. This may not be the Land of Opportunity, but it definitely is the land of opportunists when there’s an election in the wind.

            And you have the flakes – two kinds of Greens [Zeleni], the Apples [Yabluko], the Rainbows [Raiduha], the New Generation, and Khoroshkovskiy’s Team of the Winter Generation. It’s hard to figure out whether he came down with Olympic fever, or whether he was just in a hurry to come up with a name before he landed in Washington two weeks ago. I say they should all join forces and call themselves the Rainbow of Winter Apples (new). They can even shorten it to ROWA(n).

            Then there’s the “vanity” names. There was a short-lived Za Yushchenka bloc. Poor Viktor had to go and register his over-popular name, both as Yushchenko and as Viktor Yushchenko, to prevent any further abuse. Gosh, some other guy might have been happy to have such loyal fans. He might even have invited the keen-beans to join his bloc.

            By contrast, Ukraine’s lady politicians have no qualms about the use of their names. The old Progressive Socialists have reinvented themselves as the Natalia Vitrenko Bloc. Their vocal leader once liked to call herself Konotopska vidma, after a witch in a Kotliarevskiy novel set in the town she comes from.

            Once she realized the squeamish Mr. Yushchenko had filed for d*i*v*o*r*c*e, Yulia Tymoshenko, unbeloved of the energy sector oligarchs, decided to go for the gusto. She called her conglomerate of four parties the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and dared the boys to stop her. (For the record, I beg to differ with The Economist. Ms. Tymoshenko does not make “shrill” denunciations. Her voice is quite normal. Try using the word “aggressive.” Like you would for a man.)

            There is a slew of vaguely philosophical names like Yednist [unity], Sobor [another kind of unity], and Za yedynu Ukrainu [for a unified Ukraine]. At least two of them have big egos at the top. The third one practices what it preaches and joined forces with several other parties.

            There’s a clutch of special interest names: women of Ukraine, women for the future, Leftists for fairness, teachers, and Russians. Into this mix, I think I’d toss Mr. Haber’s party as a perfect counterpoint. It’s called, simply, Against Everyone. Together, these six could form a catchy bloc called Future Women Teachers Against Russia (fair). Alas, FWTAR(f) doesn’t make a very interesting acronym. But neither does SDPU(o).

            Finally, you have the Nova Khvylia or New Wave of parties and blocs. These are the ones who are appealing to patriotism in a way that has not been seen before in Ukraine’s electoral process. The oldest of the lot, Batkivshchyna, is now part of the Tymoshenko bloc, along with three other parties. The most popular of the lot, Nasha Ukraina, includes three parties and a number of wannabes. The bloc with the most clout behind it is Za yedynu Ukrainu. It takes the prize for the most number of official parties, five – one for each of its heavyweight leaders.

            After the names come the issues. Fortunately, I’ve been assiduously reading the papers and I’ve come up with the Top Ten Issues. Here they are revealed to you:

            (1) Ukraïna, (2) the People, (3) the Truth, (4) victory at the polls, (5) jobs/higher pensions, wages, stipends, (6) the environment, (7) corruption, (8) children, (9) lower taxes, and (10) free healthcare and education.

            A professional army just missed the list. Notably missing is anything to do with the sale of land. This is the issue the Communists were ready to burn down the legislature over. Now, nothing. Maybe they decided it’s better to buy in than to burn out.

            So, putting it all together, I have a little all-purpose political statement that I hereby place in the public domain. If any of you decide to run for office, feel free to use it.

            “If you want the Truth, I guarantee to raise pensions, wages, stipends. The fight against the corruption of our environment will reach our future children. A professional army will make short shrift of the bunch of oligarchs who promised a lot and didn’t do anything. I promise to do everything I do. Ukraïna, give me and the People victory at the polls.”

            Good luck! And don’t forget: after the bloc elections come the bloc parties!

–from the notebooks of Pan O.