Right-wing activists are shrouded in smoke from flares during a rally to mark the third anniversary of the Maidan protests. (c) AP Photo / Efrem Lukatsky. All rights reserved.Last week, as the world prepared for the Christmas holidays, Ukrainian MPs gathered in parliament at 10am, and departed 20 hours later. This legislative marathon happens every year, when, in a regime of secrecy and sleeplessness, Ukraine’s parliamentarians pass the budget for Europe’s biggest country. After all, when else can you carve up assets in a country that has seen the overthrow of an authoritarian president, a revolution and occupation by Russian forces?
For the past three years, parliamentary deputies, unashamed of television cameras, surround the country’s prime minister in the chamber as they trade for benefits and state contracts. Take Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party. Since 2014, this party, known for its populist rhetoric, has managed to triple the level of state support for a company that builds fire engines. In 2017, direct state financing of the company in question (which, of course, belongs to members of Lyashko’s party) will reach $25m. The Radical Party, meanwhile, positions itself as an opposition platform, yet still votes for the state budget from year to year.
Corruption remains Ukraine’s biggest problem. According to polls conducted in December 2016, 89% of the country’s population considers the current government’s battle against corruption to be a failure. As Petro Poroshenko reaches the halfway mark of his first term as president, these figures don’t bode well.
