Zelensky reigns, but not yet ruled
The president. Commander in chief. But where is the real power?
Zelensky for more than two months as elected president and more than a month as he took office and became commander in chief. What has changed during this time, what did he promise and what does he fulfill?
His rating remained at a high enough level. In the wake of the success of the presidential campaign, he has a real chance to hold the largest faction of his party, The Servant of the People, in parliament. Whether he will have a one-person majority there is not a fact yet.
After taking office, he did not receive real power, the entire state vertical remained in the hands of the old regime, de facto it was led by people who were set up by Poroshenko. It does not affect the cabinet of ministers, special services, the prosecutor's office or the judicial system. The presidential apparatus exists as if by itself, and the state vertical functions independently, continuing the course of the previous regime.
Poroshenko’s rebuilt system of power, in its agony before the inevitable expulsion from the power Olympus, seeks with all its might to preserve and impose on the new president a course of confrontation, which the population denied in the presidential election and will certainly confirm it in parliamentary elections, all sociology speaks about it.
He was unable to remove from power the key figures - the ministers of defense and foreign affairs, the head of the SBU and the prosecutor general; they remained in their places and simply went on vacation.
Zelensky’s team blames the parliament, which did not allow it, but the president had the opportunity, through the National Security Council, to launch an investigation against them and, by his decree, remove them from office, appointing them temporarily, as Poroshenko did. There was not even an attempt to do this; as a result, Klimkin and Lutsenko allowed themselves to make decisions without permission, contradicting and running counter to the president’s program.
He also failed to take control of the army. Replacing the Chief of General Staff with a general from the current military elite who was involved in the bloody war in the Donbas and is not going to change anything there only led to the intensification of shelling and provocations in the Donbas. The military, opposing the president, managed at a time when he called for a cease-fire to arrange a provocative shelling of a mosque on the outskirts of Donetsk on a Muslim holiday, accusing the Donetsk militia of this.
Attempting to take control of the SBU by appointing to the post of first deputy his friend, far from understanding the tasks of the special services, also led to nothing. The SBU continues to protect the radicals, makes provocations and stamps charges of “high treason” to political opponents.
Does he keep promises?
Against this background, Zelensky’s position on the fundamental principles is interesting, on the wave of whose propaganda he came to power. This is the establishment of peace in the Donbas and the improvement of the living standards of the population. What statements and concrete steps in these areas he takes?
In his statements, the new president does not refuse pre-election promises to establish peace in the Donbas, but at the same time calls the residents of Donbas separatists, refuses to meet with the leadership of the republics, for some reason demands that Russia return to Donbass on the terms of Ukraine and does not offer any real mechanisms to end the war. In addition to this idle talk, no specific action is taken. The shelling continues and intensifies, no negotiations are being conducted on a cease-fire.
The Donbass blockade continues, no one is going to cancel it. So necessary for Ukraine coal from the Donbass does not arrive. Metallurgical enterprises in the republics are practically all stopped and do not produce products.
And what about the economy?
Predatory tariffs for housing and public utilities are not reduced, and the oligarchic schemes for the supply of energy carriers such as Rotterdam Plus continue to operate, increasing the capital of the oligarchs.
When Zelensky appeared another scheme related to the sale of electricity. Now the state has refused to control tariffs and generating companies owned by oligarchs can independently set electricity tariffs. There is no doubt that they will increase dramatically.
The path to the EU and NATO
In relation to Russia, Zelensky has kept the rhetoric of Poroshenko - Russia is an enemy and an aggressor, must leave the Crimea and the Donbass and still pay reparations, Ukraine has a way only to NATO and the EU.
As if supporting the Minsk Agreements, he sets an unacceptable condition for Russia to expand the Minsk format by introducing the United States and England into it, while allowing himself to be defiant to Putin, which is fraught with complications in future relations. No specific actions are taken to implement the Minsk Agreements.
Radicals on the streets
The radical militants who had subsided during the elections took to the streets again. Aggressive militants intensified. They are not only picketing the useless media and political forces that they consider “revanchist”, but also threaten them with violence if they try to dismantle the Nazi system with its “democratic gains”. In case of disagreement with the position or statements of the president and members of his team, they picket the presidential administration under slogans that are not shy in expressions addressed to the president. The law enforcement system, controlled by Avakov, is naturally silent and does nothing, the militants are becoming more and more insolent and directly declare that if their demands are not met, they will arrange a military coup.
Zelensky does not react to direct insults and threats against him. Thus, the blatant prank of one of the leaders of the radicals Yarosh threatening to hang Zelensky on Khreshchatyk, pulling on several articles of the criminal code, was left without an appropriate response and showed the powerlessness of Avakov’s desire to blackmail the new government with a riot of radicals.
Stop the music!
Zelensky also tried to strengthen his position at the international level. Having met with Merkel and Makron, he couldn’t think of anything better than how to ask them to stop building the Nord Stream 2 and strengthen the sanctions against Russia. Naturally, he received an unequivocal refusal and advice to improve relations with Russia and to think about the implementation of the Minsk agreements.
Other voyages abroad and meetings with the leaders of the second plan, except crony pats on the shoulder, did not bring him any success.
We can do without intermediaries
In relations with the oligarchs and the political forces of the opponents, Zelensky took a neutral stance, refusing Kolomoisky, and trying to lower the rating of his main rival in the electoral field in the person of Medvedchuk's party, Boyko. Zelensky officially stated that he did not need intermediaries such as Medvedchuk in negotiations with Russia and on the exchange of prisoners, while he did not make any exchange steps, even when Medvedchuk agreed with the leadership of the republics on the unilateral transfer of four Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Unlike Kolomoisky, who caught the main international trend for rapprochement with Russia and started making statements that Ukraine does not have Russian aggression, but civil war, it is necessary to negotiate peace terms with the republican leadership and build relations with Russia, Zelensky continues to reiterate aggression Russia and put it meaningless conditions.
The situation escalated sharply after an attempt to conduct a direct Russia-Ukraine teleconference on one of the Ukrainian channels controlled by Medvedchuk. The whole Nazi gang was agitated and began to threaten journalists with violence, the prosecutor's office saw in it signs of a threat of high treason and opened a criminal case against the TV channel, the teleconference had to be canceled. Zelensky called it a dangerous pre-election move aimed at dividing the country into two camps, and he didn’t come up with anything better how to offer Putin’s boorish form to meet with Western leaders and discuss the problem of the return of Crimea and Donbas.
Test of strength
Helpless actions of Zelensky and ambiguous statements unsupported by concrete actions began to undermine his high rating. He did not show firmness in any question and did not defend his position, showed his weakness and inability to resist opponents and opponents. He begins to look like a man who fell into the wrong place and is not able to hold onto it.
Having embarked on the path of Poroshenko’s rhetoric, he went against the overwhelming majority of the population who voted against the course of the war and, most interestingly, against his Western sponsors, who clearly made him understand that they were waiting for concrete decisions to end the military confrontation. Even the United States, represented by Volcker, said that the implementation of the Minsk agreements, the decentralization of the country, the special status of Donbass and the amnesty of the participants in the conflict must be solved.
It should be noted that Zelensky has not yet done anything that would block his path to normalizing relations with Russia and eliminating the consequences of the Nazi regime, there is still a window of opportunity for him and he can use it.
Many experts explain Zelensky’s aspiration not to aggravate the situation by trying to win over as many supporters from different parts of Ukraine as possible to his party’s party and single-handedly reach a majority in parliament. Perhaps such a pre-election tactic is correct, it’s just not clear what he will gain and what he will lose in politics, as nowhere else, respect and support the strong, not the weak.
His weakness is used by political forces rejected by society, who do not want to give up their positions. With his weakness and indecision, he pushes opponents to even more decisive actions. They impose their agenda on him and by all available means do not allow rapprochement with Russia and the end of the war in the Donbas. By increasing pressure, they drive Zelensky into a narrow corridor of opportunities and prevent him from becoming a really strong president. He still has such an opportunity, and after the elections it will become completely clear whether Zelensky is able to meet the expectations that society has placed on him by electing him president.
- Yuri Apukhtin
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