Opinion: Ukraine will be stuck with an oligarch-linked president. But the fight rages on.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko speaks after the presidential election in Kiev, Ukraine, on Sunday. By Vitaliy Shabunin and Olena Halushka April 1 at 3:08 PM Vitaliy Shabunin is the head of the board at the Kiev-based Anti-Corruption Action Center. Olena Halushka is the center’s head of international relations.
Besides ongoing Russian aggression, Ukraine’s biggest problem remains its oligarchs. Many Ukrainian oligarchs rely on a network of Western banks and lawyers to launder the proceeds of their corruption and to whitewash their reputations in the West. Oligarchs own the top five television stations in Ukraine, and television still serves as the primary source of information for 74 percent of Ukrainians.
The results of the presidential election will influence the pace of reform and the struggle for it. However, society, not the president, controls the direction of the country’s democratic transformation. Over the next president’s five-year term, civil society and journalists must guard the real gains that have been made.
In 2014, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau was established to investigate top corruption. As of March, it sent 189 cases to court, and its detectives are working on nearly 700 proceedings. In December 2017, parliament attempted to push through a bill that would have made it easier to dismiss the director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau but, working frantically overnight, democratic reformers managed to remove the draft law from parliamentary consideration.
And while the old guard is accustomed to taking revenge against its opponents, this no longer works effectively. Last year, an outrageous acid attack against a prominent activist named Kateryna Handziuk led to her death — but it did not silence activists. Instead, they started a national and international campaign to bring her perpetrators to justice. Step by step, they are driving the official investigation forward.
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