The Independent: The Misrule of Mr. Kuchma has Blighted Ukraine
02/13/2001 | Broker
The Misrule of Mr Kuchma has Blighted Ukraine
13 February 2001
Ukraine's master of manoeuvre may be running out of room. Re-elected to a second five-year term in 1999, President Leonid Kuchma is now fighting for his political life following the revelation of tapes suggesting he plotted to get rid of an opposition journalist whose headless corpse was discovered last November in a forest near Kiev. Mr Kuchma claims he has been framed, but independent experts say that the tapes, secret recordings of private conversations in the Presidential office made by a disgruntled former security aide, are genuine. Large street demonstrations have taken place in the capital Kiev, and Mr Kuchma has been rattled enough to sack the head of his secret service in the hope of placating his opponents who talk headily of impeachment.
The sensational case of Georgy Gongadze, the murdered journalist, is, however, only the latest sign of the authoritarian misrule and corruption which blighted Ukraine since it obtained its independence, almost by default, almost a decade ago. Mr Kuchma calls himself a reformer, and in the last year or so he has shown signs of realising that only genuine market competition can ensure a future for Ukraine, potentially so rich but which has delivered so little.
Above all, however, Mr Kuchma is an opportunist who has shifted this way and that, playing first the nationalist anti-Russian card, then reinventing himself as a visceral anti-Communist. But neither variant has been very convincing. The persistence of corruption has scared off foreign investment, and led the International Monetary Fund to withhold loans.
At which point in the sorry saga, enter (or rather re-enter) Russia. At the heart of Ukraine's political problems lies its ambiguous relationship with the former colonial power. Yesterday's summit between President Kuchma and Vladimir Putin produced a string of agreements, notably over supplies of Russian energy, that may ease Ukraine's economic troubles. Mr Kuchma, in short, is playing his third and perhaps his last card, the pro-Russian one. The gambit will appeal to the many Ukrainians who hanker after closer ties with Moscow. But it will do nothing to tackle Ukraine's deeper malaise. Only a full and unfettered inquiry into the Gongadze case can do that.
13 February 2001
Ukraine's master of manoeuvre may be running out of room. Re-elected to a second five-year term in 1999, President Leonid Kuchma is now fighting for his political life following the revelation of tapes suggesting he plotted to get rid of an opposition journalist whose headless corpse was discovered last November in a forest near Kiev. Mr Kuchma claims he has been framed, but independent experts say that the tapes, secret recordings of private conversations in the Presidential office made by a disgruntled former security aide, are genuine. Large street demonstrations have taken place in the capital Kiev, and Mr Kuchma has been rattled enough to sack the head of his secret service in the hope of placating his opponents who talk headily of impeachment.
The sensational case of Georgy Gongadze, the murdered journalist, is, however, only the latest sign of the authoritarian misrule and corruption which blighted Ukraine since it obtained its independence, almost by default, almost a decade ago. Mr Kuchma calls himself a reformer, and in the last year or so he has shown signs of realising that only genuine market competition can ensure a future for Ukraine, potentially so rich but which has delivered so little.
Above all, however, Mr Kuchma is an opportunist who has shifted this way and that, playing first the nationalist anti-Russian card, then reinventing himself as a visceral anti-Communist. But neither variant has been very convincing. The persistence of corruption has scared off foreign investment, and led the International Monetary Fund to withhold loans.
At which point in the sorry saga, enter (or rather re-enter) Russia. At the heart of Ukraine's political problems lies its ambiguous relationship with the former colonial power. Yesterday's summit between President Kuchma and Vladimir Putin produced a string of agreements, notably over supplies of Russian energy, that may ease Ukraine's economic troubles. Mr Kuchma, in short, is playing his third and perhaps his last card, the pro-Russian one. The gambit will appeal to the many Ukrainians who hanker after closer ties with Moscow. But it will do nothing to tackle Ukraine's deeper malaise. Only a full and unfettered inquiry into the Gongadze case can do that.