Oligarchs are a common disease for the entire post-Soviet space, shaped largely by the Russian tradition of state-building in the 1990s and 2000s.
This is a kind of consequence of the then Russian elites’ ideas about “wild capitalism,” where the strongest would win in a hard struggle and huge financial and industrial groups would be able to form, owning entire, primarily strategic sectors of the economy, and then media and parties. From a small group of red directors, “businessmen from the big road”, often relatives, several dozen national or regional semi-criminal groups were formed by artificial efforts, often with the help of official or unofficial state aid, which dismantled the main asset of the national economy
In Ukraine, the main creators of this “new class” of owners were presidents Leonid Kravchuk and, most of all, Leonid Kuchma, who even issued special decrees to facilitate the creation of “large financial and industrial groups.” These “groups” quickly seized the most tasty bits of the Ukrainian economy, bought up or, at best, created extremely costly and influential national media, parties, parliamentary factions, and courts. Today, they can overthrow or install presidents and governments, bring parties into parliament or destroy them. This situation jeopardizes Ukrainian national interests, calls into question the ability of Ukrainian citizens to influence anything, to elect someone to power, to implement a certain course of state development; in fact, the oligarchs threaten the existence of the state of Ukraine by their existence and activities.
Today, it is imperative to deprive the oligarchs of their unlimited influence on the state, including the executive, legislative and judicial branches, the information space of Ukraine, political parties, and the economy. There are many mechanisms for such tasks, and we can take advantage of the experience of different countries. First, there should be a reboot of government and judicial bodies that will be able to adopt the relevant legislation and implement it accordingly. In Ukraine, there are many bodies that can stop the phenomenon of oligarchs through their activities – the Antimonopoly Committee, the Prosecutor’s Office, the NABU, etc. In the end, most Ukrainians must realize that oligarchs are among their most dangerous enemies, who simply make it impossible for the Ukrainian state and Ukrainians to succeed. Therefore, their removal from influence is one of the most important tasks of our time.
Suggestions:
- Restarting the work of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, the Anti-Corruption Authorities and the court, which should become the main actors in the fight against oligarchs
- Removing big business from the media
- Eliminate the influence of oligarchs in the parliament and parties
- Deoligarchization of the Ukrainian economy.
Author: Yuriy Mindyuk
