The people are not pleased. Despite returning
the Constitution of 2004, repealing the controversial regional
Russian language law, release of most of the detainees and previously
imprisoned opponents of the Viktor Yanukovych regime, and bringing the
president’s opulent residence, Mezhyhirya, back into state
ownership, people want more – now.
Suspicious of backroom deals and the motives of
deputies, it is clear that people desire a new relationship between
the citizen and the state, one where their former public masters now
become their public servants.
Accordingly, while still burying its dead, the
Maidan is demanding a say in all major decisions affecting their
lives and to have a real voice in how they are governed: members of
the government must be professional, honest, untainted by business
and corrupt schemes, should declare income and assets in a fully
transparent manner, remain fully accountable to the people through
regular detailed reporting, and, crucially, they want new, young
faces in government. The Maidan has no intention of dispersing until
it is confident that the country’s leaders are capable of governing
in a transparent and accountable manner. One can understand the
discomfort of the current crop of politicians.
Even Yulia Tymoshenko is feeling the heat. She
received a respectful, but underwhelming welcome from the Maidan
following her release from prison on Feb. 22 and is clearly more
popular with world leaders than she seems to be with her own people.
With signs on the Maidan like “Yulia Freedom, Not Power” and
“Yulia, you’re free…to go”, she likely has an uphill struggle
to establish her credibility with the electorate if she runs for
president in elections scheduled for May 25.
All of this is taking place against the
background of fragile political circumstances in Eastern Ukraine and
Crimea and economic collapse. Euromaidan supporters are still
battling bands of young provocateurs, the so-called “titushky”,
in Kharkiv, Mykolayiv and parts of Crimea as the regional leadership
is paralyzed by uncertainty. Russia is making provocative and ominous
noises regarding “protecting the rights” of Russian-speakers in
Ukraine.
On the other hand, there will be no civil war
in Ukraine. To the surprise of many western observers, most of the
east, south and even Crimea are relatively quiet. Significantly, the
elected and appointed leaders in the regions, previously
overwhelmingly loyal to the ousted president, have reaffirmed the
territorial unity and indivisibility of Ukraine and have called for
clam.
In nationalist Lviv, the citizens have decided
to speak Russian for two days to show solidarity with their
Russian-speaking brethren in the east. Even the mayor of Kharkiv, who
had earlier uttered separatist declarations, has recognized the
legitimacy of the new regime.
It
is anticipated that a new government will be appointed by parliament
tomorrow. As a matter of priority, before the announcement of a
comprehensive reform plan, which will take a few weeks, the new
leadership should adopt the following immediate 10 “quick win”
measures to stabilize the situation in the country. These will
reassure both its citizens and the world of the government’s and
parliament’s competency and commitment to fighting corruption and
restoring the legitimacy of the country’s shattered institutions
through a new model of public accountability:
1)
Immediately
sign the Association Agreement with the EU; ratify the Rome Treaty
implementing the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in
Ukraine;
2) The Verkhovna Rada should immediately
abolish the immunity of deputies; it is unclear why this has not yet
happened and the longer this issue is unresolved, the more
discredited the political system will become – a dangerous
situation when the legitimacy of what is left of the country’s
shredded institutions is at stake;
3) Send
a signal of reassurance to Crimea by re-affirming that the government
has no intention of interfering with the constitutional autonomy of
the citizens of the peninsula and that it will continue to protect
their rights; publicly
remind Russia, the US and the European countries of their obligations
to guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity under the treaty they
signed when Ukraine relinquished its tactical nuclear weapons.
4)
Organise
the police and local authorities in eastern Ukraine to fight
titushky and criminals to return peace to the cities; hold one of
the first meetings of the new Cabinet of Ministers in Kharkiv or
Simferopol in a “town-hall” format to address questions from
citizens;
5) Immediately create an open informational
space to allow objective information to reach eastern and southern
regions; use the state television channel UT-1 to facilitate open
debate and access to all sources of information;
6) Arrange (perhaps with the assistance of the
country’s European and US partners) for trainloads of people from
the eastern part of the country to visit the Maidan and Mezhyhirya
so that they can see where the money for pensions, salaries, health
care and education that ostensibly couldn’t be paid went and that
those that died shared the same desire for fairness and justice –
the Maidan needs to become an idea to promote national unity;
7) Negotiate an emergency line of credit with
the EU and US to hold over the Ukrainian economy until a more stable
programme can be agreed with the IMF; seek recovery of plundered
funds by declaring all of the people from the previous regime under
international investigation and request international banks to freeze
their accounts; to being the process of de-monopolization of the
economy, abolish the regime’s “tax reform” to rein in the tax
police and let people get back to running their small and
medium-sized businesses;
8) Liquidate the Oblast State Administrations
and pass their functions and powers to local councils, especially the
transparent formation of local budgets; people are impatiently
waiting for the legalization of the local self-government processes
that began over the last month; as part of the decentralization
process, announce the intention to transfer responsibility for key
public services (police, fire department, schools, clinics, etc.) to
local authorities; twinning cities in the east/south with the
central/west region will allow sharing of best practices in local
self-governance already underway and help eliminate regional
misconceptions as people from different parts of the country get to
work together;
9) Declare an intention to implement a system
of e-governance (follow Estonia’s example), allowing citizens to
track decisions of public authorities, procurement tenders and
contracts, judicial decisions, etc.; and finally
10) Request the EU, US and Canada, as well as
other countries and international financial institutions (such as the
World Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) to
provide the government with an inventory of the most relevant
technical assistance projects that they have funded over the years
regarding institutional reforms, particularly in the following
priority areas: legal, law enforcement and judicial reform;
competitiveness and improvement in the investment climate; reform of
local self-government and municipal finance reform; public
administration reform; and the social sector (pensions, education,
health care). Much of this is shovel-ready and there is no need to
re-invent the wheel.
Effective so-called donor coordination here is
crucial and, from my own experience, it could be the donors’
biggest present challenge. It is not enough to wait for the
government to ask for particular advice, this time you have to be proactive.
The
author is an international lawyer based in Kyiv and a former UNDP
senior governance advisor to the Government of Ukraine.
