“Poor people are not independent”
The leaders of the parties that ended up in parliament through the will of the electorate have found themselves in a situation best described by the noted Russian fabulist Ivan Krylov: “Upward strains the swan, towards the skies above, / The crab keeps stepping back, the pike is for the pond...” Needless to say, party leaders have no right to indulge in such haphazard projects because they are vested with an incredible amount of trust; they can elect future members of parliament from among their members.
These are no longer direct elections. They are worse than the ones held on a majority basis simply because people who are totally unfamiliar to the electorate will emerge. What will these new legislators be like? What steps will they be capable of taking in order to implement their ideas? Will they form another gang of hypocrites determined to use their seats in parliament to reach their own selfish goals?
Once, when I was watching a noted politician deliver a speech in parliament, I found myself thinking: “What a handsome face, what eloquence! The man can actually broach various subjects and convincingly deny his involvement in a number of wrongdoings that seem to have been proven by his opponents beyond a reasonable doubt!”
As the years passed, I became convinced that such politicians often prove to be demagogues. They are unable to pass fair judgments with regard to themselves, their parties, or factions. They are unable to admit their own mistakes and repent. They keep telling lies and accuse others of lying. They change their views to please the public instead of proving the correctness of their convictions, without fear of failure.
Now and then these politicians commit unpardonable acts. What made our sympathetic and intelligent-looking prime minister declare during the so-called gas conflict that the reason for raising per capita gas supply prices was that Ukrainians were paying less for gas than Russians, and that this was unfair? Why did he keep silent about another glaring injustice, namely that the Russians have higher wages, salaries, and pensions? Why did he put up with two injustices before the elections and then remember only one?
Yanukovych is accused of giving bribes to the electorate before the elections in the form of pension increases. This is true. However, the postponement of higher gas and electricity tariffs to May 1 is another way of offering a bribe. Somehow the whole affair does not make anyone happy.
At the beginning of April Ukrainian MPs (except the BYuT), forgetting their ideological differences, showed concern for that small part of the Ukrainian people known as the elite. In other words, they took good care of themselves. They passed a bill whereby the state has to pay each and every jobless individual 10,000 hryvnias a month until retirement, provided this individual had been a member of the Ukrainian parliament at some time or other.
Today the new MPs, having considered this experience of overcoming differences, are obliged to take care of that other part of the nation, all those people outside the elite, all those ordinary Ukrainians. If there are no means of increasing budget receipts, then it stands to reason that state funds should not be spent on something without which we can do at this stage. Budget money should not be spent on building monuments, staging official parades, and marking special days but instead should be channeled into health care. The wagon of the Ukrainian economy should be pulled, and every opportunity should be used so that Ukrainians are no longer regarded as beggars, so that every Ukrainian can live for as long as they are destined, without the suffering that is caused by poverty.
While talking about national dignity and independence, and about the fact that without national awareness there is no nation, one ought to remember that there is no nation without people, and that the poor are never independent.
