“Every new political protégé promotes interests of certain oligarchs, which destroys the state,” - Head of the UGCC
“Who are your people?” This question could be asked to all public officials who receive money for living not from the state but from “sponsors.” This corruption is destroying everybody. Even after the Revolution of Dignity, when the power passed to other hands, the new men of power defined the so-called quotas, by which each party must be guaranteed a certain number of people in their government. We, the religious leaders, have issued an open statement against this shameful practice.
The Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church told it in an interview to Italian newspaper SettimanaNews.
Describing the current political situation in Ukraine, the Primate has said that Ukraine is a country with the Soviet past, for the last 25 years it has had a double identity. On the one hand, a developing civil society gained rapid growth with independence: it concerns above all the middle class that is able to establish connections with European and technological modernity. On the other hand, it has maintained the state apparatus as a relic of the Soviet era. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Communist political class broke up, and the former communist elite has turned into oligarchs, keeping power in their hands. Communist leaders have direct access to the state heritage and at the time of privatization they managed to seize the public goods. Ordinary people who had no access to public holdings, or did not know how to protect their rights to benefits that are considered common property, have remained on the margins of society.
“Those who have money, His Beatitude Sviatoslav continued, “create their own policies, protect their interests, establish political parties ... Every new political protégé promotes interests of certain oligarchs. Over the past decade this vicious circle, which destroys the state, has created a whirlwind of corruption. I remember a Soviet comedy (“Ivan Vasilyevich changing profession.” - Ed.), in which a protagonist invented a time machine, by which Ivan the Terrible traveled to Soviet times. Wandering among the people, the king asked all the same existential question: “And who are your people?” This question could be posed to all public officials who receive money for living not from the state but from their sponsors.”
The Head of the Church also noted that civil society in Ukraine is one generation ahead of the dinosaurs of post-Soviet system, which, unfortunately, continue to implement its policy.
“We are now in the same situation as was Poland after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Imagine that there is an old car that can keep up with the times, and the driver is inside. You need to change the car, but the one who drives it will not do that as he is too attached to it. Civil society in Poland managed to destroy the old system due to "Solidarity" movement that was supported and in a sense led by John Paul II. President-Communist remained holding the wheel in his hands, but without the old car, so he happily signed all the agreements on integration with the European community. But the reform of the governance system and state apparatus was not launched and was not led by bureaucrats or politicians, but civil society. In Ukraine - two years after Euromaidan – we are experiencing a similar situation,” His Beatitude Sviatoslav says. It was reported by UGCC Information Department.
