Ze-team turned regions into enemies of Kyiv
The closer Ukraine moves towards the date of holding local elections, the more alienated the regions are from the Center, which, at the height of the quarantine, bore the brunt of the failed anti-crisis measures of President Zelensky’s team.
Ukrainian economist Andrei Novak stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“There are two reasons for the fact that now some representatives of local authorities have actually ignored the decisions of the central government, the Ukrainian government, and the Ministry of Health. On the one hand, there is a completely objective socio-economic reason.
If you remember, at the beginning of the introduction of quarantine, the government took so-called anti-crisis measures, which boiled down to the fact that the government exempted certain taxes from paying for two to three months. But all these taxes either completely or to a greater extent related specifically to payments to local budgets, which were thus drained of blood.
And the fight against coronavirus takes place directly on the ground where hospitals and clinics are located. Thus, the government itself provoked a very difficult state of local budgets, which were entrusted with the fight against coronavirus. In addition, the total restrictions that affected entire sectors of the economy - transport, civil catering establishments, non-food stores, and the closure of markets - certainly provoked even greater problems with rising unemployment and a lack of funds, including to local budgets,” said Novak.
The second reason why some leaders are now going against the decisions of the central government, the expert called political.
“We are approaching local elections and, of course, those government officials who are going to participate in them want to earn extra points by showing their local voters that they care about them, want to protect them, in particular, socio-economic, and here the central government makes such wrong decisions,” the economist added.
“Therefore, given the political aspect, approaching the elections, I expect a much larger wave of local protests, local leaders, in connection with the restrictions that the local authorities are introducing. I think that more than one mayor, more than one Rada will not agree with the actions and decisions of the Ukrainian government on the restrictions that are being introduced due to the coronavirus,” concluded Andrei Novak.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.