“A revolution? No, it’s just a different deal of the cards,” said sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko, deputy director of the Centre for Society Research in Kiev. A few weeks after Yanukovych’s removal, his frustration was clear: “This government defends the same values as the previous one: economic liberalism and getting rich. Not all rebellions are revolutions. It’s unlikely that the Maidan movement will lead to profound changes that will justify calling it a revolution. The most serious candidate in the presidential election on 25 May is Petro Poroshenko, the ‘chocolate king’ [because of the fortune he made in that industry], one of the richest men in the country.” Even as demonstrators were being shot in the Maidan (Independence Square), the centre of popular anger since 22 November, a bizarre handover of power was being brokered behind closed doors with the powerful businessmen who have now taken control of Ukraine.
Over the past 20 years, Ukraine has experienced a form of development referred to as oligarchic pluralism. Many businessmen who amassed huge fortunes buying up mines and factories privatised cheaply after the fall of the Soviet Union have gone into politics. Oil and gas traders have become ministers or heads of major institutions. Former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a leading figure in the 2004 Orange Revolution who was held up in the West as a martyr when she was imprisoned in 2011, made a fortune in the gas industry. A revolving door has developed between business and politics. Some powerful businessmen have played a more discreet role by financing the campaigns of politicians whom they expect to represent their interests. This system, which became the accepted way of doing things under President Leonid Kuchma (1994-2005), assumes constant reconfiguration shaped by the competing interests of the powerful, and their alliances and feuds. full: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/28/ukraine-new-leaders-same-oligarchs/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
