Poroshenko’s Millions Interfere With Ukraine’s Fight
Poroshenko’s Millions Interfere With Ukraine’s Fight for
Democracy
MOSCOW, May 30 (RIA Novosti), Nastassia
Astrasheuskaya — While much of Ukraine’s population and
most western governments tie high hopes with the newly
elected president Petro Poroshenko, a former diplomat and
now a successful entrepreneur, foreign critics say his
millions are likely to stand in the way of bringing
democracy to the country that finds itself in deep political
crisis.
“Huge fortunes don’t make their holders supermen
or even wise men. We get wisdom, democratic traditions hold,
when people together can freely discuss and debate the
problems they face. All nations — Ukraine included —
need that sort of democratic interaction,” Sam Pizzigati,
associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in
Washington, DC, told RIA Novosti.
Pizzigati, editor of Too
Much weekly magazine, writing on excess and inequality, and
author of a 2012 book The Rich Don’t Always Win, has
advocated the cause against oligarchy for years. He has
adopted the motto of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis
Brandeis: “We must make our choice. We may have democracy,
or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few,
but we can’t have both.”
“Heavy accumulations of wealth
throw the political scales off balance. It doesn’t really
matter whether the super-rich hold office themselves or
remain in the political shadows. Their wealth will distort
democracy either way,” he said.
Poroshenko, 48, won the
state presidential vote on Sunday with 54.7 percent of the
votes. Owner of Kyiv-based Roshen confectionary, which
brought him a revenue of $1.3 billion and production
facilities in Russia, he keeps the distance in the relations
with official Moscow, which had on several accounts banned
imports of Roshen products.
Poroshenko will now need his
money-making skills to bring his country out of the
near-bankruptcy state: Ukraine owes Moscow $3.5 billion for
gas deliveries.
While Russian President Vladimir Putin is
not planning to visit Poroshenko’s inauguration ceremony,
Moscow said it respected the choice of the Ukrainian people
and would maintain diplomatic relations with their
country.
The US leader Barack Obama, whose administration
met with Kyiv authorities throughout the months of protests
in Kyiv and then in the eastern regions, was among the first
to congratulate Poroshenko on his victory.
Former Prime
Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, secured 12.81 percent of votes at
the vote, which took place weeks after she was released from
jail, where she had served three years on charges of
exceeding powers in Russian gas deals. Founder of Ukraine’s
once largest gas importer United Energy Systems of Ukraine,
which existed between 1991 and 2009, she was one of
Ukraine’s richest women at the time.
“It looks like the
chocolate king beat the gas queen. You don’t have
legitimate authentic leaders over here, what can I say –
oligarchs in the pocket of United States and the NATO
states,” Francis Boyle, professor of international law at
the University of Illinois, College of Law, told RIA
Novosti.
He said the country’s wealthiest people were put
in charge for a reason – that is to serve the interests of
the US, willing to place NATO’s troops as close to Russia as
possible. Ukraine may give them this opportunity, he
said.
“As we know, Kyiv put all the oligarchs allegedly in
control of the Russian speaking portions of Ukraine. Well,
is that really democracy, putting these rotten corrupt
oligarchs in charge? That had nothing to do with democracy,”
he said.
Ukraine underwent a Western-backed regime change
resembling a military coup in February. The country’s
parliament ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, changed the
constitution and scheduled an early presidential election
for May 25.
The vote came amid a large-scale military
operation launched by the new Kyiv authorities to crack down
on protesters refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the
government. Since the beginning of the protests, Ukraine has
lost the Crimean peninsula to Russia after a referendum in
March, and the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions declared
themselves sovereign republics earlier this month.
On the
day of election Poroshenko said the special operation in
eastern Ukraine should continue and become more
effective.
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