Svitlana Zalishchuk, the former civic activist and journalist, stood cross-armed and determined on the podium of the parliament, her new workplace, on Dec. 11. She was demanding a new vote on the appointment of a controversial colleague as deputy head of a committee in parliament, and she was not going to give up.
By her 32 years of age, Zalishchuk has run a number of civic campaigns for cleansing the parliament, and personal voting. After the Oct. 26 election, in which she ran on Petro Poroshenko Bloc, she will be doing it from the inside.
Her decision to politics came during the EuroMaidan revolution. It crystallized almost simultaneously with a similar decision of her friends, also former journalists and activists Mustafa Nayyem and Serhiy Leshchenko.
“In the last year, the lives of many of us have merged with the life of the country. We no longer think of ourselves as apart,” Zalishchuk, says. “Journalists and activists going to politics is a kind of civilian mobilization to shoulder the responsibility.”
The trio negotiated with Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna, as well as with Poroshenko’s Bloc, and chose the latter as the carrying mule. They campaigned heavily, and most often together as well.
This was nothing new for Zalishchuk, however. Prior to parliament, she was involved in a number of civic initiatives, and was the public face for many of them.
She co-founded Center.UA, known for a number of European integration projects in the time of President Viktor Yushchenko. She was also at the forefront of Chesno, which has promoted transparency in government by, among other things, analyzing assets and performance of lawmakers and ministers. She also took part in the Reanimation Package of Reforms initiative, which is supposed to provide a blueprint for a more democratic and market-oriented Ukraine.
She also used to work as a foreign correspondent at the Ukrainian Channel 5 while studying journalism at the National University of Taras Shevchenko.
In parliament, Zalishchuk hopes to push for laws aimed at de-monopolization and transparency of the media market and a change in electoral legislation. She wants to switch to the 100 percent proportional system with open party lists and lower the electoral threshold from 5 to 3 percent. Ukraine’s parliament was elected though a mixed system. Half of the deputies in parliament come from party lists, while the other half competed in single-mandate constituencies.
Zalishchuk says her background provides ideal training in her new role as lawmaker.
“The school of civic activism is the best school for a politician,” she says.
With Chesno, she traveled the whole country and talked to thousands of Ukrainians. “Writing a law is just a small part of the job,” she says. “It has to be about communication with people as many laws are tied with painful changes.”
Zalishchuk is a part of the group of new lawmakers which is expected to stir up the parliament. On the second plenary day, Zalishchuk was one of some 50 lawmakers who refused to take part in a vote appointing the whole Cabinet in bulk because it meant that she would also vote for creation of a ministry for information, a move she strongly opposes.
She says she was not happy with Valeriy Voshchevsky from Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party as a vice prime minister of Ukraine and the creation of a new ministry.
“I agree with the point of (Minister of Information Yuriy) Stets that we need more active information policy to win this war but I don’t think there was a need to creat a ministry for that,” she says. “Foreign reserves are shrinking (less than $10 billion) and we have a budget deficit ($4.3 billion). We need to cut expenses.”
Intead of a new ministry, a special department responsible for information policy can be created elsewhere in government, she says.
At the same time, Zalishchuk is optimistic about appointments of three foreign-born ministers – Natalie Jaresko in finance, Aivaras Abromavicius in economy and Alexander Kvitashvili in health. She believes that “their experience, non-afilliation with political or financial groups and readiness to take the responsibility” is what the country needs. With the new government formed, she also hopes for changes in public administration, defense, energy and other sectors to be in place soon.
“This parliament and government has to start working in the interest of people, rather than their own pockets, finally,” she says.
When asked how she is going to live on $320 a month, which lawmakers are currently making, under the new law, she says her father and fiance will support her, but she would like this issue to be addressed in the future.
“In a civilized state only high salaries can help to fight corruption, but we have to save our economy first. There are more important issues to tackle right now than salary of the deputies,” she says.
Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected]
