How Zelensky missed the people’s dangerous request to combat corruption

Almost 78% of our fellow citizens consider the president directly responsible for corruption in power. And for the Ze-team, instead of attacking the authors of this study, it is more appropriate to understand the reasons for the growing popularity among the population of anti-corruption issues

How “servants” reacted to “bad” numbers for Zelensky and what this could lead to

According to a survey by the Foundation for Democratic Initiatives, conducted jointly with KIIS and the Razumkov Center, 77.6% of Ukrainians, to be exact, agree with the statement that the president is directly responsible for corruption in the government and military administrations.

Regionally, the figures roughly correspond to the overall result. That is, in this case, people united. However, this unity obviously did not please the power team. “The results of a survey about how many Ukrainians hold the president responsible for corruption are very strange.

It looks like a targeted attack,” “digital” Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Fedorov came to the defense of the head of state. Next, he outlined a list of questions that he had for sociologists. He says: “What would be the result of a survey when asked “Who is responsible for corruption...” and different answer options?” Hinting that the respondents would not indicate the president directly as responsible. In a word, a universal conspiracy.

The survey, the results of which Fedorov considers manipulative, was conducted not only in July, as he notes, but also in August. What the authors of the study indicated in the preamble. Therefore, accusations of allegedly deliberately disclosing them are inappropriate right now. It takes time to process the data received, and 2019 respondents were interviewed in all regions except those temporarily occupied and those where hostilities continue.

In addition, the mantra “if we don’t like the results of the survey, then corrupt sociologists are to blame” is worn out to holes. The July survey of public opinion was carried out at the expense of the Prague Center for Civil Society, the August one - with the support of the MATRA program, funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine.

If you believe in the conspiracy theory that was drawn up in the corridors of power, those who ordered the attack on the Ukrainian president are sitting in the Dutch embassy? Or the Prague Center for Civil Society, which provided us with 4.2 million euros in grants during the Russian invasion of Ukraine? The center is funded by the governments of Sweden, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, the USA and Finland, and also receives funding from the European Commission and a number of Western charities.

The head of the “servants” faction in parliament, David Arakhamia, also joined in with the story about the manipulation. From his statement you can’t immediately understand whether he himself read the sociologists’ report, because there was no mention of the president’s responsibility for “all everyday corruption,” as Mr. David put it.

Only for corruption in the government and the CAA. He was indignant: “Not only is the President of Ukraine engaged in war and searches for help around the clock, he must also replace the entire anti-corruption vertical, on which the country and its partners have spent billions.” And he further expressed hope that anti-corruption authorities will strengthen their work, including information. He also recalled the initiative of President Vladimir Zelensky to equate corruption during the war with high treason.

So, since then, a legislatively formalized presidential initiative has not been submitted to the Verkhovna Rada. More precisely, it was postponed. Therefore, why Arakhamia reminded about the unfulfilled promise is unclear.

There were other angry statements about “manipulators.” There is no point in dwelling on them, because the response campaign to the results obtained during the survey of public opinion is obvious to everyone. The only surprise is that the developers of this information campaign did not look further into the survey, because after the first question about the president, there are still interesting figures. For example, more than half of those surveyed (55%) agreed with the thesis that military assistance to Ukraine should be provided by foreign partners, subject to the effective fight against corruption.

Only 28.6% were against, 16.3% found it difficult to answer. What do these numbers indicate? A significant part of our society believes that those who will force the Ukrainian authorities to effectively fight corruption are in Washington or Brussels. Because they have leverage in their hands. Of course, it is not very good when so many Ukrainians consider external pressure on their government acceptable, but, obviously, there are reasons for this.

Another important signal: more than half (52.5%) of respondents expressed the opinion that it is now possible to criticize the authorities for corruption and do not agree that such criticism destabilizes the country and reduces the trust of foreign partners. 35.4% agree not to criticize the authorities, 12% could not clearly decide. It seems that the authorities did not even notice how “out of time” had become a thing of the past for them.

This was to be expected not only because the number of corruption scandals has increased, the loudest rocked the Ministry of Defense under the previous minister Alexei Reznikov. The main reason, as evidenced by the reaction of pro-government speakers to the data of the opinion poll by Deminitive and their colleagues, is the inability to give an adequate response to the strengthening of anti-corruption sentiment in society.

Hear society or only your own people from Bankova

In our mass consciousness, the president is responsible for everything, both in peacetime and even more so in times of war. Ukrainians clearly see where the center of government is now located - not in the Rada, not in the government, but in the Presidential Office. Therefore, there is no need to look for any treason or manipulation in respondents’ answers to the question about personal responsibility for top-level corruption. On the contrary, we need to quickly figure out why Ukrainians think this way. Let us hint: because the central government regularly gives reasons for this.

Example: several journalistic investigations in a row concerned Rostislav Shurma, Andrei Ermak’s deputy in the OP. More precisely, the business of his brother Oleg. The official confirmed: the brother received payment from the Guaranteed Buyer state enterprise for electricity from solar power plants located in the occupied territories, “in the same way as all other companies located in this territory received.” And he called the investigation “manipulative.”

That is, Mr. Shurma either does not understand that his brother is not “everyone else,” because he himself is the deputy head of the President’s Office, or he is convinced that everything will pass without consequences. Subsequently, Shurma inappropriately named Igor Kolomoisky as the customer of the Bihus.info investigation.

But what should have been done at Bankova after these investigations appeared? At least suspend the clerk for the duration of the internal audit, conduct it and report on the result. Which would convince society that these people are not being shielded. The other day a journalistic investigation appeared, in which the name of Oleg Tatarov, another deputy of Ermak, again appears. Journalists are very attentive to whose activities. Will the “servants” start talking about “ordering” and “manipulation” again?

Let's return to Arahamia's comment. He confirmed that from the new year the country should switch to a “war budget”, where there will be spending only on defense and weapons. Let us remember that Vladimir Zelensky recently announced that he is already mentally prepared for the transition to a “fully militarized economy.”

Such statements, coupled with the latest innovations in mobilization policy, may indicate that the government is preparing for a protracted war in the face of slowing military and financial support from Western partners. It is still unclear how exactly the country will be transferred to the war economy.

This can be a hard transition with a reduction in social standards, or a softer one, when most standards will remain the same, only the costs for them will decrease. But whatever the proposed options, you need to understand the importance of feedback from society, because we will still be talking about certain restrictions and a deterioration in the quality of life.

The president finally vetoed the scandalous law on restoring public access to officials’ e-declarations only next year. That is, the OP is ready to respond to public sentiment. But what is alarming is that the government creates problems for itself, as was the case with the adoption of this law, in order to then solve these problems.

Sort of like crisis management with image losses. With such an approach, it will be almost impossible to conclude a new social contract. And this, unfortunately, will definitely not give Ukraine strength in the war. What to do? Start with a real fight against corruption, without moving the needle on anti-corruption bodies. Well, officials whose brothers receive compensation for the fact that their solar power plants produce electricity for Russia cannot rule the country.