The hopes inspired by the first peaceful protests in Kiev were connected with the idea that authoritarian trends in Ukrainian politics could be stopped, that Ukraine could move towards European integration, and that there could be a return to political and economic pluralism in Ukraine and elsewhere in the region. However, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the subsequent invasion of eastern Ukraine, combined with the rise in extreme forces on the Maidan and perception of western support in ousting former president Viktor Yanukovych, meant that EuroMaidan’s liberal agenda has faced an uphill battle. [...]
2016 was a critical year for Ukraine’s development. EuroMaidan’s democratic potential was finally exhausted and its civil revolution finally ended. Rather than a flourishing democracy and civil society, 2016 brought the non-democratic and non-legal consolidation of power by and around the president. [...]
By law, the president controls the security services, army, diplomacy and prosecutor's office. Poroshenko has chosen to appoint loyal people to these institutions, regardless of their skill or experience. An extreme example of this is Yuri Lutsenko who was appointed general prosecutor in May 2016 despite having no legal background. The president went to extreme lengths to get a majority of deputies in parliament first to change the legal requirements for the job and then to vote for his ally. [...]
Ukraine’s judiciary cannot be considered an independent branch of government. Little has changed since the mid-1990s: the judiciary remains an integral part to the power base of Ukraine’s leading clans — currently, Poroshenko’s. As a result, public trust in Ukrainian courts is at an all-time low. Shortly after EuroMaidan, the judiciary became one of the first targets of lustration. However, attempts to lustrate corrupt judges have failed miserably, as there are legitimate concerns about the competence and independence of those involved in lustration efforts. Indeed, lustration has had rather unexpected consequences: the judiciary has become even more obedient to the ruling clans who saved them from civil society pressure. [...]
But this assessment seems to have been unrealistically positive. Media independence is actually in decline. In 2016, Ukraine witnessed a number of attacks on major TV channels that constitute the major source of information about politics for Ukrainians. This trend started in May 2016 with the leak of foreign journalists’ personal information by nationalist cyber-activists. Several weeks later, the highly respected journalist Pavel Sheremet was murdered.
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