Vladimir Zelensky has published his “anti-oligarchic” bill. There are doubts that the president’s real goals correspond to the declared ones.
The sixth president promised to fight the oligarchs. Voters like this promise and it finds a response in their hearts. However, it is not clear why the presidential initiative in the form of a draft law “On Prevention of Threats to National Security Related to Excessive Influence of Persons with Significant Economic or Political Weight in Public Life (Oligarchs)” is designed for only 10 years. However, something else is clear.
For example, why the National Security and Defense Council will form a register of oligarchs. Its composition of personnel is formed by presidential decrees, and examples of disagreement (on the part of Verkhovna Rada chairman Dmytro Razumkov) can be quickly leveled. In effect, Zelensky personally wants to determine who is an oligarch and who is just a “big businessman.” Democracy in a presidential way looks like this.
The vague criteria of belonging to the category of “oligarch” also testify to personal desire. A professional lawyer will turn them into mincemeat in five minutes, but the Constitutional Court is now without a head and is unlikely to want to quarrel publicly with Zelensky. In fact, like many parliamentarians, they do not intend to explain to voters why they did not vote for a bill in which the word “oligarch” is prudently included in the title. It is easier to press the green button and tell how much you have done for Ukraine.
“Political responsibility” for contacts with oligarchs looks like bullying in Ukrainian reality. Andriy Yermak, the head of the President’s Office, his aide, and numerous advisers are not required to report on contacts with the oligarchs. They are still trying to minimize information about their communication with them.
The ban on oligarchs appointed by Zelensky (not by political culture and state of the economy, but by the National Security and Defense Council under the chairmanship of the president) to fund political parties and participate in large-scale privatization is, frankly, illegal. It violates not only the norms of the Constitution but also common sense. In the civilized world, which Ukraine part aspires to be, a person can use the means of which he can explain without restrictions. Why then this rule will not work?
It is rightly said that Zelensky’s desire to identify oligarchs in a manual mode resembles the actions of his Russian namesake, Putin. However, Ukraine is not Russia, there may be more than just another reaction from society (although many may like such “de-oligarchization”). But the Kremlin’s interest in using such tools is obvious.
Frankly speaking, de-oligarchization is not a restriction of the rights of those who have been publicly called “oligarchs”, but the creation of conditions under which their influence on the life of the country will diminish. Without the register administered by the National Security and Defense Council, and due to the actions of the Antimonopoly Committee or the growth of power and the influence of the middle class. Nobody has heard about it lately, but the outflow of more than $ 1 billion in foreign investment from Ukraine over the past 15 months is a reality recorded by the National Bank.
I wonder how the G7 will react to Zelensky’s initiative? It is the Western countries that have recently been a safeguard against the populist initiatives of the President and “Servants of the people.” Perhaps they will be able to convincingly explain that the simplest way is not always the most effective, and populism is unacceptable in the current situation?
P.S., significantly, on the day the text of the law against the oligarchs was published, the Servant of the People faction voted to withdraw from ProZorro the construction of the Kyiv Ring Road worth about 100 billion hryvnias.
