While trying to convince Jaresko to accept the new post,
Poroshenko is also finagling to place his own loyalists in the cabinet, which
would in effect assure his own control.
But even if Jaresko could pick her own appointees, her job
would be nearly impossible as long as Poroshenko stays as president, and able
to indirectly sabotage her work by a multitude of roadblocks , beginning with
sanctified logjam in the chief prosecutor;s office and extending to a myriad of
decision points at all levels of government, long possessed by entrenched elite.
It is his own resignation that is probably needed, and perhaps an appointment
of temporary president by parliament. Someone like Oleksandr Turchynov, for
instance.
Why Turchynov? He seems as someone without destructive
ambitions, who proved himself in the very short but decisive period after the
ouster of Viktor Yanukovych, and previously as informal leader of Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna Party leader
during the difficult time of her imprisonment.
Brian Mefford’s article in the Kyiv Post illustrates
Poroshenko’s ongoing machinations of the choices of appointments for Jaresco’s cabinet
of ministers. This looks like another fake in the making, with no systemic
changes, that should fool no one, least of all Ukraine’s friends in the West.
Since Poroshenko will not willingly remove himself, pressure
for his ouster will be mounting, with or without snap elections. The result of
new elections, with no decisive winner, will be more mayhem in parliament and
probably diminished support from the West. Small parties will be having a ball.
Writes Paul Goble in The Ukrainian Weekly: “The
maintenance of Western sanctions (against Russia) is contingent upon Ukraine’s
willingness to reform itself…. Ukraine will only have only itself to blame for
the resulting isolation”. This message is not new. Explicit warnings came
earlier from no less than US vice president, speaking directly to Ukraine’s
parliament in Kyiv late last year.
If Ukraine’s leaders who wield real power are so
self-absorbed as to misunderstand what they are told, or pretend to do so in
the expectation that things will resolve themselves (“Yakos to bude” – a
favorite Ukrainian figure of speech), the West may wonder whether Ukrainians
are able to govern themselves as a nation.
Collapse of Ukraine’s independence would be regrettable,
considering the sacrifices and tears brought in the last two years, as well as
in the centuries past. What we have now holding the nation by the throat is
actually a minority of corrupt crowd and bosses entrenches in key positions,
starting with the Judiciary, in important segments of the executive, and in the
private sector run by the oligarchs.
Jaresko, doing a great job as finance minister,
should not be sacrificed to that crowd, in order to delay the inevitable day of
reckoning for Poroshenko.
It looks more and more like the job at Maidan
was not finished two years ago.
