Oleksandr Rzhavsky is a former businessman whose political career only started a year ago when he was elected to parliament. He is running for president now.
He surprised everyone when he published an income declaration earlier this month, disclosing the highest figures of income for 1998 among all of his rivals. But despite his assets of Hr 1.4 million, four luxury cars, and bonds worth Hr 1.8 million, the mass media have not jumped on him. On the contrary, his press conferences are attended by few newspapers, and almost no TV crews, and his newly created party, Yedyna Rodyna (Single Family) remains obscure.
Nevertheless, Rzhavsky's campaign is steaming ahead. His team has by June 10 collected 201,036 signatures of the 1 million needed, and he is remaining optimistic about his chances to be the next president of Ukraine – at least in his interviews.
Rzhavsky is married and has four children. The oldest son is studying in the United States, and two younger sons and a daughter live with him and his wife in Kyiv.
Q: You are relatively new to politics, you are not as famous as Leonid Kuchma, Oleksandr Moroz and Yevhen Marchuk, so what are your chances to become the next president?
A: This is the only feature that I don't have compared to them. Those who think that I cannot become the president, are thinking in stereotypes. Of course, if I said that today, on June 14, I would be able to become the president, I wouldn't be thinking soberly. But only God knows what can happen tomorrow.
Q: If things don't go as planned, and you will not be able to get enough support, what other candidates are you considering as your potential allies? Who would you give your support to?
A: In any circumstances, I will fight to the very end. I think that the only thing that can stop me from participating in the first round of elections would be my death.
Q: If one of the candidates offers you to become the prime minister and solve the problems you hope to be solving if you get elected president, would you agree?
A: Your question is too narrow. First of all, any president will need me, no matter who it is. All the major challengers are either of pension age, or close to that, while I'm 20 years younger than any of them. It means that I have about 20 or 25 years of an active life ahead of me. That's why if any of the candidates offer me to become the prime minister, their choice will be good – I can be useful to any of the presidents.
Q: Do you consider your program realistic? For example, you propose to increase social spending to the maximum while the revenue come from a single 5 percent tax on turnover.
A: Two-thirds of the whole economy is now in the shadow. It means that we can increase the budgetary revenues by three times. To achieve this, I will change the tax base radically
You know, in 1991 or 1992, when Ukraine had a lot of sausage, some of it was smuggled to Russia. Because there it cost six rubles, and here it was two.
And it didn't matter what obstacles the government created, how many people with machine guns were at the border. People loaded their bags with sausages in the morning, because they knew that they would pay 100 rubles here, and 30 kilometers away on side of the Russian border they would get 200 rubles back. Nothing could stop them.
But one day people came to shops with their bags, and saw that sausage in Ukraine also cost six rubles. Nobody went on strikes, they just went back home.
This shows us that things can be solved with economic means, and through new laws. Q: Who wrote your program?
A: I did myself. You really think I can trust somebody to write my program? Maybe some candidates have people to write their programs, but if they don't write their programs themselves, they won't be able to run the country by themselves. …
You've seen that the main points of my program are to do with morals. I think that what's happening today, has its roots in morals. All major policy-makers in the country have a deficit of morals, honesty and justice. My task is to increase the morals and people's responsibility. Q: How are you going to do it?
A: It's very easy. We have to introduce the tax on turnover. It's the least evil of all other taxes, because it's to difficult to have the VAT and income taxes with our mentality. Also, we will have to increase the customs duty on goods that Ukraine can easily produce. We will make it easy and more profitable to import technology. Assembling the Sony TVs from foreign-made spare parts will be more advantageous than importing ready-made ones.
Next, we won't let any foreign foodstuffs in here. There will be a deficit of German yogurts for a while, but it will stimulate similar production here.
Finally, as of Jan. 1, 2000, tariffs will be cut down on coal, gas, and oil.
Q: How much money are you going to spend on your presidential campaign?
A: I would seem like a beggar if the true incomes of many candidates had been disclosed. But with other people's help and my own money, I will spend something around the legal allowance [Hr 1.7 million].
