Former Economy Minister Viktor Suslov complained to one of the Ukrainian daily newspapers recently that while in his post, he had no power to implement any serious reform to help the country’s feeble economy. He had the ideas, he said, he knew where the country should be going, but he had no authority to lead it.
Finance Minister Ihor Mityukov perhaps also thinks that his portfolio gives him too little authority, but too much of a share of the responsibility and trouble. Fair enough: he is the only minister in the Cabinet who regularly has to stand for hours in front an assembly of angry Parliament members trying to explain why miners, teachers and other state employees have not been paid their wages for months, and why the budget still has no cash.
Some of the ministers leave their stressful and powerless jobs in Cabinet to seek asylum in the country’s legislature a collective body where nobody is apparently responsible for anything in particular and power seems more enjoyable.
But the delight in being a deputy can rapidly vanish when Parliament’s members discover that the executive is reluctant to fulfill their orders: the country’s troubled president not only blocks their legislation but, what is worse, has the audacity to have his own ideas as to how the country should be run.
The members decide that impeachment is needed, or better still, changes in the Constitution that would get rid of the presidency altogether and hand all power to the legislature. This brilliant plan, however, never gets off the ground for the very reason that Parliament is a collective body and there are always enough people who like (or just support) the presidency.
Meanwhile, the president also plots to bite off a bigger slice of the power cake: every half year or so his aides start shouting that Parliament is crippled by infighting, the country is run by decree anyway, and therefore direct presidential rule is needed to help the poor country out of the debris of a ruined economy.
Once a year or so, the President successfully practices establishing an authoritarian regime over a small piece of Ukrainian land: he first did it in Kyiv, then in Yalta and most recently in Odessa. So it seems that those elected by the population to wield power and to attempt to improve the sorry state of the country are actually impotent or can make a convincing argument that they are as they try to dodge responsibility for something done badly, or many things not done at all. But not everyone, unfortunately, is powerless in Ukraine.
In this sad situation the only people who seem fully contented with what they have are those lower and middle level government officials who deal with people on behalf of the government on a day-to-day basis.
Never do you hear an Ivanenko or Petrenko of such and such ministry or this or that tax administration department complain that they do not have the power to do something. They have enough power to accept bribes for the speedy issue of some bureaucratic scrap of paper to a pensioner, and they are powerful enough to leave their offices for lunch for three hours every day while 200 people are queuing up in front of their doors to have some document signed.
If they happen to be tax inspectors, they have the power to visit the same lucky businessman every week to milk him for a Hr 9,000 fine for any bookkeeping error, and then report on the successful performance of their job to earn their monthly bonus.
OK, maybe not all of their decisions are final. Perhaps, the unlucky businessman who had to pay the fine can spend another Hr 9,000 and prove in court that the fine was unfair.
Or perhaps, a minister can issue an internal instruction that would cancel the type of bureaucratic document Ivanenko specializes in peddling. But does this show that the bureaucrats do not have real power?
Unfortunately not. It merely demonstrates that they do not have any real responsibility. Because the next day they will fine someone again, and that person will not challenge them in court. They will invent another type of document that suddenly becomes indispensable, and they will continue taking three-hour lunch breaks. What is more, they know they sit firmly in their chairs. Unlike a minister or a premier who will have to leave as soon as Parliament or the president becomes fed up with their inactivity, the Petrenkos know they are here to stay. They are confident Ukraine cannot function without them, and they sleep well at night no matter how many bribes they accept.
Katya Gorchinskaya is a Kyiv Post staff writer.
