KIEV, September 11 (RIA Novosti) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko outlines interim results of his presidency as Sunday, September 14, marks his first 100 days in office.
Regardless of the failure to fulfill his election pledge – to achieve peace in Donbas, Poroshenko has the highest rating among all acting politicians.
However, experts think that Ukrainian residents are coming to the end of their trust in their president and further deterioration of the political and economic crisis in the country will result in a fall in his presidential rating and a decline in his political power ahead of the early parliamentary elections to the Ukrainian Rada.
COMPLICATED CHALLENGES
Poroshenko took office on June 7. The billionaire, who enjoyed the support of 54.7 per cent of voters in the first round of the early presidential elections, took the presidential chair at a very thorny time for his country. Ukraine has lost Crimea, the country's economy is in decline, society is split over the lingering military confrontation between the army and the self-defense forces in the eastern regions of the country, relations with Russia are at deadlock.
All of the above circumstances have been regarded by experts as an inauspicious start for the fifth Ukrainian president. Besides, as the country has transferred to a parliamentary-presidential form of government, Poroshenko now has limited power to make prompt and effective decisions and for fulfilling his election pledges.
After his inauguration Poroshenko declared that he did not want any more bloodshed and his priority was to ensure peace in Ukraine. The president repeatedly promised the east decentralization of power, early parliamentary and local elections and expressed a readiness to declare an amnesty for all the participants in the standoff, who had not committed grave crimes. One of his main pledges was the right to free usage of Russian in the Donbas with Ukrainian maintaining only state language status in the region.
Regardless of all the declarations of peace, the Kiev authorities intensified the special operation of the internal security forces against the Donbas residents displeased with the February coup-d'état. According to the latest UN data, roughly 3 thousand civilians fell victim to the conflict.
FIRST ACHIEVEMNTS AND FAILURES
Ukrainian experts and politicians differ in their evaluation of Poroshenko's work in the first days of his presidency. According to the head of the Ukrainian Center of Applied Political Surveys "Penta" Vladimir Fesenko, the president has been quite successful in demonstrating that even under the parliamentary-presidential form of government that he remains the main political figure in the country.
"It is absolutely clear now that the key figure, who defines not only the foreign but the internal policy of the country, is the president. And the situation with the so-called governmental crisis at the end of July, when Poroshenko, took steps to evade the resignation of the Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, vividly confirmed it. Moreover, he made him an ally," he said to RIA Novosti.
For another thing, Fesenko says, no other Ukrainian president has maintained such active and direct contact with other world leaders.
"It is of course, largely due to the crisis in the east of the country, but, nevertheless, it is Poroshenko"s fundamental achievement that he has managed to maintain consistent and active pursuit of his foreign policy objectives," he adds.
According to the expert, another significant achievement of Poroshenko, considering the time frame, is the signed association agreement with the European Union and the provision on free trade, which is part of it. Kiev expects it to boost economic development. Russia is cautious of the negative consequences for its economy. Moscow has repeatedly said it would take defensive measures in the case that it disagrees with the European Commission on the amendments to the association agreement.
The Ukrainian leader has also fulfilled his key election pledge to release the current Rada and schedule reelections for October 26. This will allow strengthening of his influence not only in parliament but within government. Poroshenko aims to form a pro-presidential majority, which, according to the law, is required for the formation of a new government.
The Director of the Kiev Center of Political Studies and Conflictology Mikhail Pogrebinsky, in turn, evaluates Poroshenko"s work in the last few months as a "failure".
"I do not see any achievements. Those 100 days were a near total failure. In the beginning Poroshenko had every chance to leave his mark on history as the peace president but it is now clear that under his presidency the war was ramped up a gear," he said.
The leader of the Ukrainian Communist Party Petro Symanenko voiced a similar opinion. With the destruction of all of the major budget revenue generating enterprises in the east, a drastic fall in the national currency, a freeze in salary and pension payments, rapid price and tariff growth, there is little place for any positive changes in the actions of the authorities under Poroshenko leadership, he told RIA Novosti.
"Moreover, a lot of people, we may, in fact, say over 15 thousand civilians have died. Millions of Ukrainian residents have become refugees as a result of Poroshenko"s policy. He promised to end the war in two weeks, but not only did he not stop it,instead he aggravated the catastrophic consequences we are experiencing now," said the communist leader.
FORCED PEACE
At the meeting of the contact group on the settlement of the Ukrainian in Minsk on September 5, the Kiev authorities and the Donbass self-defense forces succeeded in reaching a ceasefire agreement, which came into force on 7:00 pm Moscow time on the same day.
Both sides in the conflict, however, continue to exchange mutual accusations of a breach of the truce. Thomas Greminger, an Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), however was firm in his announcement that the ceasefire is "observed on the whole".
Political analysts however think that Poroshenko was forced to declare a ceasefire with the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, understanding that there is no hope that the forces involved in the conflict will become aligned, and the situation being complicated by economic problems. Experts also think that the declared ceasefire gives a chance to draw an end to the war.
"It is a forced decision. But under the circumstances this truce is absolutely necessary. Poroshenko simply had no other way out," Ukrainian political analyst Kost Bondarenko told RIA Novosti.
"Poroshenko tends to the diplomatic settlement of the current conflict in the east. This document (Minsk protocol-ed.) is quite dubious, but it has clearly become an alternative to a large-scale war with Russia. If the current shaky truce is fixed and the intensity of the military actions is gradually decreased, it would be a major achievement," he said.
It is now clear that the status of Donbas may become a stumbling block in the negotiations. The protocol signed at the trilateral contact group meeting suggests, among other things, that Ukraine should adopt a law on granting special status to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and early elections of the heads of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics. The document also stipulates that the consent of the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics with regard to the adoption of the law would not mean abandonment of their independence. The leaders of the self-defense forces also declared that they lay claim to all of the territories in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and would not consent to the "special status" only for the parts of the territories under their control.
RELATIONSHIP WITH RUSSIA: NEEDS YEARS TO BE RESTORED
After the change in power in Ukraine the cooling of Russian-Ukrainian relations has affected both political and economic ties at all levels. The bilateral relations were aggravated even further after the Crimea joined Russia following the results of the referendum. Kiev continues to regard the Crimea as part of Ukrainian territory and accuses Moscow of violating its territorial integrity. The Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly accused Russia of supplying technical and military aid to the self-defense forces. At the end of August Poroshenko made a statement saying that that he had cancelled his trip to Turkey to call an urgent meeting of the country"s Council on national security and defense "due to the acute deterioration of the situation in Donetsk region". He claimed that "Russian troops had moved into Ukraine".
Those claims have been repeatedly ruled out by Moscow. Russia's Defense Ministry, refuted the authenticity of the list of Russian military units allegedly "drawn into the areas of military actions" in Ukraine , having called it "a spoof story". The representatives of the Donetsk People's Republic said that Kiev and the West repeatedly made allegations of a Russian invasion in order to somehow explain mass defeats of the Ukrainian army in the clashes with the self-defense forces.
Ukrainian politicians think that the restoration of good-neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine could take years. Poroshenko, however, would be forced to establish some dialogue with Russia to try to solve the accumulated problems between Kiev and Moscow.
"We need to restore normal trade and economic ties with Russia. I think that the president, as someone who has created a large corporation, fully understands the need to reinstate neighborly relations between the two sovereign independent states," the Ukrainian Party of Regions deputy Mykhailo Chechetov told RIA Novosti.
According to Bondarenko, Ukraine can't reject the cooperation with Russia as the majority of Ukrainian enterprises are "tied up" in Russian markets. "In such a situation it is the price policy for energy supplies which matters the most for Ukraine. Only Russia is able to ensure the sales of Ukrainian machine engineering products on the Russian and the Customs Union markets. Only Russia is able to sign contracts with still formally operating Ukrainian shipbuilding plants. Only Russia is able to sign contracts for air jets and rocket systems. So, you should be aware of what you are doing: either you flannel the Americans and then you secure the global interests on Ukrainian territory and extinguish native people, or you ensure the development of Ukraine as an independent state," said the politician.
But at the same time, Bondarenko says that the revival of relations with Russia depends not on Poroshenko's desire as such, but on the good will of his western partners, in particular, the US.
"Poroshenko is trying to [set up a dialogue with Russia], but at the same time he understands only too well that he is not in charge of everything. In a country, which is actually being ruled by the US Ambassador to Kiev Geoffrey R. Pyatt, the president's desire to normalize the relations with Russia is not enough," said Bondarenko.
HUMAN RESOURCES FAILURES
Poroshenko's staffing policy is the one to get the lowest marks in the Ukrainian political environment and society. The president tries to fill in the gaps in human resources primarily with staff from the business environment.
Thus a successful businessman Boris Lozhkin has become the head of his administration. The first deputy head of the presidential administration – an owner of the agro-industrial complex "Mironovsky Hliboproduct" Yuri Kosyuk. The businessman appears on a list of the richest people in Ukraine. In mid-August the Ukrainian mass media wrote that the chief employee of the presidential administration was on his vacation in one of the most expensive Italian resorts while the army was battling hard in Donetsk. Later some sources wrote that Kosyuk filed a resignation report but the information was not confirmed.
According to the Ukrainian ex-Minister of Defense, Anatoly Hrytsenko, the president is making the same mistakes as his predecessor Victor Yanukovich who also tended to only appoint his acquaintances to the key posts in the country.
"The new tendency of the staffing policy has already become clear: under Poroshenko the chief banker, chief prosecutor, chief diplomat , chief commander and any other chief can be only Petro Porishenko himself. He is the only one to be responsible for everything. But all of us will have to pay for it," he said.
Chechetov agreed: "Unfortunately, he has failed to abandon the "quota" principle in forming the executive power. There are very many needless people in government. In the regions there are many people, who discredit the president, thus the residents do not support his policy of building up power as it is corrupt and unprofessional."
But above all Poroshenko is being criticized for his appointments in the law enforcement agencies as it is the president who appoints the executives in the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff.
"There are a lot of pretensions to the head of the Ministry Valery Geletey, who turned into a so-called "armchair general". This man absolutely does not fit into the military arena. He is being criticized by both the politicians and participants of the anti-terrorist operation," " Batkivshchyna", the largest faction in the Ukrainian parliament, deputy Vladimir Yavorivsky told RIA Novosti.
He said that the deputies have long been discussing how from being an ordinary policeman Geletey had grown from a colonel into a Colonel General in half a year.
The deputy thinks that there is at least a dozen candidates, who deserve the post of the head of the ministry a lot more.
Following the failed military operation near the city of Ilovaisk in the Donetsk region, where the Ukrainian troops were surrounded and experienced severe losses, the president promised to make a staff reshuffle in the ministry but the senior executives both in the defense ministry and in the general staff still retain their posts.
THE PUBLIC SUPPORT IS STILL IN ITS HIGH
Porosheko's victory in the first round of the elections was a reflection not only of his popularity, but the perception of his candidacy in comparison to his rivals. Besides, the policy pursued by his team, to elect the president in the first round in order to stop the conflict in the east, also worked out well.
100 days later public support has decreased but the experts think it is logical.
"The situation is that Poroshenko somewhat surfed to the peak of power having caught the crest of a wave which has not completely rolled back yet. But at the same time he understands that in a month or two his rating will start falling because to sustain the levels he needs some achievements, but so far there are none," said Bondarenko.
Fesenko, in his turn, reminded that there is something of a "tendency" in Ukrainian politics that the ratings of the preceding president decrease more than two-fold in the first year of their presidency. At the same time Poroshenko now has the highest rating among all the acting politicians in the country.
"And of all the acting politicians he is starting to lose popularity because his real actions are being evaluated and there will be always those displeased with the current complicated situation. It is (too)early to evaluate Poroshenko. The first 100 days is more of a symbolic landmark. Besides, as the social ratings show support for Poroshenko's party remains the highest, " the expert said.
According to the latest sociological polls, the current president's block would receive 24.2 per cent of votes if the parliamentary elections took place this Sunday.
