We kept expecting this week that Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko or another of the silly presidential candidates would call a press conference to say that they’re close to finding the cure for swine flu, only to have a rival criticize them for taking so long.
The one-upsmanship over who is to blame for the flu epidemic and who is doing the most to curb it was relentless. President Victor Yushchenko said he’ll come up with one million protective face masks, while Tymoshenko upped the ante and promised to produce 100 million. They rushed to the airport to greet a prescription flu drug. On Oct. 30, Tymoshenko cancelled schools and universities and banned large public gatherings until at least Nov. 23. Then Yushchenko went on national TV on Nov. 4 to blast her for holding her outdoor election rally with 200, 000 people on Oct. 24, when she should have known about the raging flu epidemic.
And through it all, Ukraine’s politicians allowed their infighting to outstrip thoughtful public health strategies and they, once again, put the nation in an embarrassing international spotlight. The swine flu epidemic has shown the world that Ukraine’s health-care system is broken, the national budget is paltry and the state of preventative health care is practically non-existent. Yushchenko’s begging for international aid was an unseemly reminder of pervasive incompetence and corruption.
While the politicians fight over who gets to sit behind the steering wheel, the national car careens from one tragic accident to another, veering all over the road and knocking down everybody and everything in its path. The government allocates Hr 50 million to combat swine flu, but no one can say where a lot of the money went. The central bank refinances banks, but the money gets stolen and no one is punished. Scandals come and go. Who remembers the Nadra Bank scandal, all of two weeks old? Are there pedophiles in parliament, or not? The list goes on and on.
In the end, the nation’s leaders should know that, after the Jan. 17 presidential election, they will have to work with their defeated foes. That’s why they should remember that brinksmanship can go too far, and push the nation off the cliff. Their actions lately seem designed to make it happen sooner and more dramatically, to the unrepressed joy of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who once famously said: “Ukraine is not a real nation.”
This is a real nation. But to survive all its real crises, the people will have to forge ahead on their own and not count on help from their leaders, once again.
