Ukrainian phenomenon: weakling with a rating of 70%
The latest news and personnel appointments greatly upset Ukrainian adequate workers.
The governor of the Lviv region, as the media say, representing the interests of Akhmetov, demands the dismissal of the head of the regional police, who unblocked the cars with coal blocked by the mobile tent named after ex-People's Deputy Semenchenko.
The neo-Nazi Andrei Medvedko, suspected of the murder of Oles Buzina, became a member of the public council at NABU, as did his colleagues in the C14 organization and activists of the Porohobot party “Demsokira”.
Former people's deputy from the BPP and cousin of the agricultural oligarch Verevsky, Alexei Mushak, became an adviser to the new Prime Minister Goncharuk on land reform issues.
The same Prime Minister Goncharuk honorably escorted the propagandist Vyatrovich to demobilization, promising to continue and implement all his undertakings.
The president’s office ignored opinion leaders supporting the president on social networks and invited prominent gunpowder bloggers to a meeting to discuss with them media support for the new government’s initiatives on the Donbass issue. Having received a bunch of contemptuous and negative posts on social networks as feedback, those invited by the President’s Office ended up trashing the president.
Well, the icing on the cake was the appointment of the very odious ex-People's Deputy from the Popular Front Anton Gerashchenko as Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs.
What other new faces are you missing? Have you gone completely crazy up there? This is approximately the leitmotif of the flood of comments on social networks. The range is from perplexed through critical to downright indignant.
If, just recently, the Shariev couple of video bloggers, loyal to the new head of the Bank, are sneezing at the new government, calling them “m**ks” and “fucking degenerates,” this means that the bottom, if not reached, is definitely somewhere very close.
We will know that the situation has finally reached this point when Andrei Portnov begins to speak in similar terms about the new team, who, judging by the changed tone of his Telegram posts, is also beginning to be irritated by the slowness and delays of the new GPU leadership in the investigation of the initiated criminal cases against Poroshenko and his entourage.
The situation for Zelensky does not yet look threatening. All recent measurements, no matter who conducted them, record a stable support rating in the lower classes in the range of 70 to 80%.
In some places, the growing irritation of active public groups, which turns into open discontent, is just a ripple in the water. With such a level of support as it is now, the authorities have the right to communicate with society in any style - even running and dashing or making a horse a senator, like the Roman emperor Caligula. The masses, blinded by love, will also love the horse.
But the authorities have no right to ignore these negative signals. After all, the new dissatisfied are leaders of public opinion, and those of them who pinned some hopes on the new government for changes in a positive direction. These are those who helped Zelensky and his team become power.
And in this environment today, a rhetorical question is increasingly heard: why then does the government listen not to them, but to those who helped Poroshenko get his shameful result in the form of 8% of the votes. And won’t such a policy lead to Zelensky finishing with the same or similar trust rating?
“On leaving, ex Omelyan received triple his last salary and words of great gratitude). And not the slightest consequences for the “killed” UZ, Ukrposhta, Ukravtodor and others. And some of his successors are starting to seriously use the legendary hyperloop themes...
Ex Grinevich also received an increased salary and fifty thousand in health benefits. And the replacement’s statement that it was a cool and correct “school” course. And it definitely needs to be continued without significant changes...
For a little while longer, Ex Suprun will generally be eligible for a state award for saving the industry. The replacement, of course, says that everything was perfect...
Everything is already too bright not to understand the obvious. If “yesterday’s” was impeccably correct, then “why?”) Why did society so confidently, harshly, contemptuously and cruelly send away those of yesterday?
And this is not a question for society itself, which perfectly expressed its complaints and openly outlined its rejection of those same “yesterday”...
And the second - much more important question - what is our justice? And why does the same Omelyan, under whom the industries literally died, and all operational management was replaced by cheerful FB posts of a notorious, pimply young man, not respond to legal claims, but happily receive “severance pay?”
More broadly, if none of yesterday’s elite stole anything and managed effectively, which is proven by the sugary behavior of the current “tough managers” towards them, then why is society so irritated?
And yes, the already ritual story that literally tomorrow we’ll “drive” Pyotr Alekseevich definitely doesn’t work. Because this is extremely empty,” writes a well-known Kiev political consultant in his blog, from whose pen all spring and summer came fiery agitations in favor of the current government.
In fact, nothing surprising happens. What is happening is natural. And that's why.
After the Maidan, Ukrainian politics exists within strict limits, beyond which threatens those politicians who decide to do so with complete marginalization, and, at the most, being pushed out of the field of political play with the label of “national traitor.”
These rules were established by a minority with support from abroad, but they turned out to be unusually effective and helped format Ukrainian politics in such a way that, in principle, there were no people and forces left in it capable of daring to go beyond the flags.
It is also not surprising that the new government is not trying to go beyond these artificially drawn boundaries, having a colossal resource of trust and support that none of its predecessors had. A resource that allows you, in principle, to sneeze at any conventions and imposed rituals.
Moreover, the backbone of the current government consists of people who had no relation to any Maidans, which means that going beyond the flags does not threaten the collapse of the foundation of its own legitimacy, as would be the case with Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk or Turchynov.
However, the new government does not show any significant will to stop bending to the minority and prefers to follow the path of least resistance, floating by inertia on the course laid before it.
Moreover, we see how not just yesterday’s, but the most odious of them are already beginning to infiltrate into power one by one.
Was it worth it to strain so hard and change the person in the presidential chair? Such questions are now coming to many minds. And in the future, if nothing changes, this could lead to serious changes in the political map in Ukraine.
The main problem that predetermines marking time is the amorphous nature of the enormous support that the current government is so proud of. Yes, this is an achievement. And this is the majority. But at the same time it is nothing. This support is not institutionalized in any way. There is no such party, the Bolsheviks would say, if they find themselves in Kyiv in September 2019. The funny and loose “Servant of the People”, assembled from who knows who and who knows who, doesn’t count.
It’s the same story with the expert community, the media and opinion leaders. The majority there are people who openly disapprove of even the timid attempts of Zelensky and Co. to carry out some kind of revision of the policies of their predecessors.
There is nowhere to get other people, and raising new ones is troublesome, costly and, most importantly, requires time, which the authorities do not have. So, as Comrade Stalin used to say, we don’t have any other writers for you, work with those who exist. These sentiments were quite succinctly characterized by Prime Minister Goncharuk, who came from among pro-Western NGOs, in whose opinion Poroshenko was leading the country in the right direction, but he just didn’t do it fast enough.
Today Zelensky has nothing to counter such sentiments even among his circle. But supporters of the previous course, although they are a minority, are a well-mobilized minority, overrepresented in the media and among experts, ideologized and supported from outside.
To resist the pressure of such a minority, you need to rely on something more significant than an abstract rating. And there is nothing to rely on. And, in the literal sense. Zelensky cannot enter into an alliance with anti-Maidan forces. In today's Ukraine, they are no longer the majority, and the repressions of the previous five-year plan significantly weakened its activists, purged or discredited its leaders in the media.
So, in the current conditions, the slide of power into Poroshenkoism is, alas, an objective process.
The situation clearly demonstrates that you can be a weakling even in a situation where you have concentrated almost all power in your hands and are supported by 70% of the population.
Differences in interests and conflict between different interest groups will only increase over time. The only question is how quickly this will happen and who will ultimately ride the protest wave.
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