Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues his “victorious march” against the oligarchs. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted on Thursday, September 23, a bill that he introduced, which was dubbed “the law on de-oligarchization.” The document provides for the creation of a “register of oligarchs”, which will include large businessmen who have a monopoly in certain spheres of the economy, have political influence and control the media.
NSDC Secretary Oleksandr Danilov previously reported that 13 people fall under these criteria in Ukraine, but did not name these people. The register will also disclose information about politicians who are influenced by this or that oligarch. In addition, billionaires will be prohibited from making contributions to the accounts of Ukrainian political parties.
Everybody already knows everybody
Of course, the voter likes it when he is promised more transparency about the influence of oligarchs on politics. But does this require a law from Zelensky? Not really. Thanks to journalists, the whole country already knows which of the oligarchs or their entourage regularly visits the President’s Office or meets with his aides. And to understand the influence of oligarchs on politics, you do not need a register, and even one that, at its own discretion, is maintained by the NSDC, which is personally controlled by the president. To do this, it is enough just to carefully study how which of the deputies votes and for which particular bills.
Evgeny Teise
One of the most revealing was last year’s vote for the so-called “anti-Kolomoisky” law, approved under pressure from the IMF. The adoption of the document made it impossible for the nationalized Privatbank to return to its former owner Igor Kolomoisky.
The oligarch is trying to get back the bank through the courts, which the state saved by capitalizing billions from the pockets of taxpayers. Several dozen deputies from the Servant of the People presidential faction did not vote for this law. Opponents of the relevant bill in the Rada were, in particular, Kolomoisky’s business partners and his former associates in the UKROP party, previously funded by the oligarch.
Party sponsors are not oligarchs, but unemployed
So, Zelensky failed to mobilize his entire faction in support of a truly anti-oligarchic law. But his faction in the Rada supported the bill “against the oligarchs” almost unanimously. As well as Kolomoisky’s business partners from the deputy group “For the Future”. Miracles, and more!
However, it is hard to believe that all these people have rethought their approaches to politics. It is more likely that simply the bill with the loud name “anti-oligarchic” will change little in the relations between politicians and oligarchs. Take, for example, the financing of parties. The oligarchs from the NSDC register will be prohibited from supporting political forces with money. But neither Igor Kolomoisky, nor Dmitry Firtash, nor other oligarchs, as a rule, personally finance the parties.
The largest sponsors, for example, “Servants of the People” in the election year 2019, as follows from reports on the website of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, were quite ordinary Ukrainians. Millions were transferred to the party’s cashier by people whom the journalists of the Our Money project identified as a cook in one of the restaurants of Georgian cuisine, the owner of a lingerie store and an unemployed person who was deprived of parental rights.
Situational allies
Just like the recently introduced NSDC sanctions against a number of influential businessmen, this law strengthens the president’s position, gives him additional leverage on billionaires, and can restrain their political ambitions and economic appetites. One of those likely to fall under the new law is Zelenskiy’s main political opponent and oligarch Petro Poroshenko. At the same time, neither sanctions nor this law will change the very principles of the behind-the-scenes game between the authorities and the oligarchs in Ukrainian politics. After all, Zelensky, like his predecessors, is too vulnerable to such influence from the moneybags, having become his hostage.
When influence groups within a government faction refuse to support bills that are key for the country, one has to seek support from other factions that have their own sponsors. In particular, the Servant of the People in the Verkhovna Rada is regularly supported by the deputies of the OPSZ, a faction consisting largely of associates and business partners of the “sanctioned” Dmitry Firtash and Viktor Medvedchuk.
Instead of including these people in some kind of register, it would be more logical to just stop cooperating with them. This, however, is impossible as long as the “golden share” in the Rada remains with another contender for the new register – the aforementioned Igor Kolomoisky. This is how the collective responsibility of the oligarchs has been working in Ukrainian politics for more than a decade.
Monopolists can’t do otherwise
No registries will be able to break this mutual responsibility until oligarchic monopolies in the Ukrainian economy are destroyed. For decades, oligarchs have controlled entire industries, and the toothless Antimonopoly Committee cannot do anything about it. When there is no need to compete in a free market, it is easier to improve business efficiency by lobbying the interests of monopolies and protecting their privileged position. This concerns, for example, the empire for the production of mineral fertilizers and the monopoly on gas supplies to the population of Dmitry Firtash, as well as the domination of Rinat Akhmetov’s companies in the field of providing the population with heat.
For the first time in two decades, the Antimonopoly Committee called a spade a spade in 2019 and decided to finally destroy the monopoly position of Dmitry Firtash’s structures in the mineral fertilizer market, accusing them of artificially raising prices. However, Firtash managed, controlling two-thirds of fertilizer production, to prove in courts that he was not abusing his monopoly position.
Without questioning the specific decisions of the judges, we have to admit: even if the proper political will is shown and the Antimonopoly Committee does its job, this is not a guarantee of breaking the oligarchic monopolies. In fact, the role of arbiter between government and business is played by the judicial system, which, according to a recent poll by the Razumkov Center, is trusted by only 1.7 percent of Ukrainians. But reforming the Ukrainian judicial system is no longer such an easy task as creating a register of oligarchs.
Author: Eugene Teise. columnist for the Ukrainian edition of DW
The commentary expresses the personal opinion of the author. It may not coincide with the opinion of the Russian edition and German wave generally.
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