An interesting blog post about the nature of Ukraine and corruption, since it split from USSR/CIS.
http://annaraccoon.com/
Enjoy the read.
Interesting blogpost but kinda lightweight and myopic assessment. It is a well known fact that Ukraine has had huge problems with both corruption and lack of rule of law ever since it became independend - with developments in many ways like those in Russia.
The guiding principle of the judicial system has been the Soviet style: "Just gimme the guy and I'll find the article in the law." The complex Soviet legacy legal code pretty much guarantees that everyone is a criminal, and if you're taken to court will be found guilty of
something - unless you can buy the get out of jail card.
Using the mere word corruption is perhaps too mild way to put it. If someone thinks that for example Spain, Greece or Romania has huge problems with corruption, as they do, the situation is and has been worse by magnitudes in Ukraine both vertically and horizontally. From low level cops or medical doctors, university professors, regional or government officials and judges to highest level politicians everything works by bribes and anything can be fixed with money. Anything.
Now for some that may sound like an evil capitalist wet dream, but in reality Ukraine is the antithesis of a free-market economy. Lack of rule of law, byzantine legacy legal code from the Soviet era, cryptic and random taxation, big and powerful bureaucracy, lack of private property rights and corruption makes the market dysfunctional. Just for one example there's a gaping hole where you'd normally expect to see small/mid-sized businessess.
Why? Because if you have a successful business that grows it will get raided and stolen from you. A small one man enterprise does not get any interest but when your business starts to grow it will be up for grabs and taken from you, and becomes part of a company owned by organized crime, government official, politician or an oligarch. The corrupt judicial system will confirm the change of ownership, and if you complain too much you will be found guilty of
something or dead.
That's why you mostly have either huge business conglomerates or tiny one man enterprises. There's a lot of small time entrepreneurs in Ukraine, but they're wary of growing their business not to gain too much attention because then they'll risk losing it with added possibility of going to jail or getting killed.
And that's also why the biggest supporters of Euromaidan were the small business owners in Kyiv. They collectively provided most of the funding, resources and services to the protesters.
Then there's also the direct theft of tax payer's money. Two most important ways for politicians to do it has been stealing the hefty gas subsidies (7,5% of gov budget) with their bulvanes, and abusing the public procurement system and tenders. In both cases the system and decision making has been kept opaque to hide the wrongdoings. And people such as journalists looking into it risked getting killed.
For its funding the IMF has set conditions to make reforms regarding pretty much all of the above. And of course any such reforms were unacceptable for Yanukovich and his cronies. Remains to be seen how the new interim government does, and what happens after the May 25 election. Reforms won't be easy and not even popular - and the guys having been abusing the system will do everything they can to prevent or delay such reforms.
Here's a good primer of the societal and economic developments after indepedency:
Ukraine - Political and Economic Lessons From Democratic Transitions
The IMF reports are also informative:
http://www.imf.org/external/country/UKR/index.htm
The latest guy in the front office (now in Russia) isn't the only one with his hand in the taxpayer cookie jar.
Yanukovich certainly isn't the only one, nor the first, and won't be the last. But during his rule he took corruption and stealing tax payer's monies to a whole new level in Ukraine. And that was pretty much the final straw for Ukrainians who had already endured under huge level of corruption for two decades. Remember his opening speech in the 2012 UEFA European Championships? That booing audience is just one example of how unpopular he had become soon after getting elected.
People had already seen how voting did not bring change (* - in fact the matters only got worse with Yanukovich. And when Yanukovich violently attacked the peaceful protesters November 30 at 04:00AM people had had it. Yanukovich's political and economic support base started eroding right then, and it was all downhill for him from there on.
*) Ukrainian joke goes:
How do we get rid of corrupt politicians?
Have an election. After the election hang the parliament. Then have another election. Hang the parliament. Then have a third election. Now the MPs are probably clean, but just to keep it that way hang half of them.
