"... if a free and fair election takes place, ... a leftist will win."
Vladimir Malinkovich, a political activist and presidential adviser – spoke his mind on the occasion of the eighth anniversary of Ukraine’s independence and its upcoming presidential elections.
Born in Soviet Ukraine, Malinkovich, 58, turned against the Soviet regime as a dissident in his early 20s. He joined the opposition Ukrainian Helsinki Group. For those activities, the Soviet government kicked him out in 1979 to the West, where he worked as a Russian editor for the American Radio Liberty radio station and for Forum, a Russian language magazine sponsored by the emigre Ukrainian publishers Suchasnist.
In 1991, while on vacation in Ukraine, he became a bit player in the events surrounding the attempted putsch in Moscow and the proclamation of Ukraine’s independence by Soviet Ukraine’s parliament on Aug. 24. He returned to Kyiv in December 1992. In 1994 he joined Leonid Kuchma’s presidential election campaign team. After Kuchma’s victory, he became one of his advisers on political issues, only to resign a month later.
Malinkovich bounced back into politics in 1997 when he co-founded the Social Liberal Union, better-known by its acronym SLON or elephant, with Volodymyr Hrynov – an adviser to the president and former deputy speaker of Soviet Ukraine’s parliament. The stated purpose of SLON was to elect deputies in the March 1998 parliamentary elections, to further expand a market economy and to form closer ties between Ukraine and Russia.
The hidden purpose was to take votes from communist candidates in their Kharkiv and Donetsk strongholds. While his partner Hrynov supported Kuchma, Malinkovich tried to distance SLON from the president, but failed, and left it before the parliamentary elections. In the March 1998 elections, SLON received less than 1percent of the vote and elected one deputy, Henady Balashov.
Q: What do you remember about the events in Kyiv in Aug. 1991?
A: I recall well how Ukraine proclaimed its independence because I attempted with Ukraine’s deputy speaker Volodymyr Hrynov to prevent it from happening the way it did. I arrived in Kyiv on vacation from Munich. On Aug. 18, the day before the putsch in Moscow, the KGB openly followed me around the city. That might have been coincidence, but at the time I thought it was because I worked for Radio Liberty. When news about the putsch reached Kyiv on Aug. 18, people went into shock.
Most sat glued to their television sets, called their relatives in Russia, or listened to foreign-based radio broadcasts. The first politician from the parliament to speak out publicly against the organizers of the putsch was Deputy Speaker Hrynov. He gave an interview to Radio Liberty on the morning after the putsch. At the time, the influential figures were Leonid Kravchuk, the Communist Party leader and Vyacheslav Chornovil, the nationalist Rukh leader. Hrynov was in neither camp.
The Social Democrats called me early Aug. 19 and we met that morning at Yuri Buzdugan’s [then deputy head of Kyiv’s Shevchenko administration district] flat to print out leaflets [condemning the putsch], which we taped on the walls of underpasses. Then I headed for parliament, which by that time was surrounded by KGB officers and militia. Armed personnel carriers were parked on Sadova adjacent to the offices where today parliament committees convene. The city was quiet. Not many people appeared on the streets. All day, Rukh deputies attempted to draft a statement on the putsch. It was as if they were writing to the Turkish Sultan, crossing t’s and dotting i’s. By five that evening, they finished drafting their manifesto, which they later made public in the Writers’ Building. None of Rukh’s leaders agreed to be interviewed then by Radio Liberty. They were hesitant. Only their deputies agreed to talk to the press. That evening, Kravchuk addressed the nation in a televised speech. He neither condemned nor supported the organizers of the putsch organizers in Moscow.
At the time, I actively advocated preserving confederation ties with Russia. I neither advocated rebuilding the empire, nor did I support calls to declare state independence. I approached Deputy Speaker Hrynov Aug. 23 and told him that Rukh leaders were negotiating with Kravchuk on declaring Ukrainian independence. I suggested that he present a motion in the parliament on the 24th calling for deputies to adopt 1) an amendment to the constitution providing for Ukraine’s sovereignty, and 2) a resolution that would bar Communist officials from holding government office. But Hrynov’s assistant, Oleh Bai [who today heads the State Committee for Information] dismissed my proposal; Hrynov did not float that proposal that day. Instead, during a nationally broadcast session of the parliament on Aug. 24, the leader of the opposition in parliament, deputy Ihor Yukhnovsky, took the floor and began his oratory. It began with an explanation of the inexpedience of declaring independence immediately. …
And I remember Yukhnovsky summing up his motion: ‘Point one: the motion to declare independence …’ That motion was overwhelming approved by the majority of deputies. On Aug. 25th, after arguing with the nationalists [Rukh], I met with members of the ‘democratic elite’ and pushed the idea of holding a national referendum on independence. I felt that declaring independence was an issue too important for the Soviet nomenklatura to decide.
A national referendum was in order. I met with members of the local intelligentsia and leaders from Ukraine’s social and liberal democratic parties. Together, we drafted statements objecting to the manner in which independence had been declared and called for holding national referendum on independence. Soon afterward, I returned to Munich as my vacation had officially ended.
Q: When did you return to Kyiv, and how did you get involved with Kuchma?
A: I returned to Kyiv at the end of 1992. Shortly before I had a heart attack that fall, Dmytro Tabachnyk, who was Prime Minister Kuchma’s press secretary, and I agreed to organize Kuchma’s presidential campaign. That fall, then ex-Prime Minister Kuchma and Tabachnyk visited me in the intensive care ward of the hospital. That’s where Kuchma’s presidential campaign began. At the time, no one thought we had a chance – including him. I ran the information and analysis part of Kuchma’s campaign. I was in charge of preparing his election program and ‘ideological’ platform, which we based on granting official status to the Russian language, resolving Crimean autonomy issues, improving relations with Russia, fighting corruption, etc.
Q: Why did you leave the Kuchma camp?
A: I resigned a week after the election because Kuchma named Volodymyr Radchenko as Minister of Internal Affairs. It was Radchenko [now first secretary of the National Security Council, the former head of the secret service after his stint as minister of interior] who had … persecuted dissidents, including my wife and me. [Note: the Post attempted to contact Volodymyr Radchenko to confirm this accusation.] There were secondary reasons as well, for example, the absence of an economic program.
Q: How would you describe the situation in Ukraine today? What do you think the next eight years of independence will bring?
A: The situation today is a nightmare. I find it difficult to predict what will happen in October … Taking into consideration the catastrophic state of the economy, I think that if a free and fair election takes place, it is almost inevitable that a leftist will win. In this connection, I hope the most moderate of the lot – Moroz – wins.
Q: Why do you think Moroz is the most promising candidate this election?
A: The nomenklatura-oligarch clan in power today threatens both the right and the left. If Kuchma loses this election, the ‘businessmen’ dependent on the state will go bankrupt – because they are nothing if they lose their government ties. They are unlike Russian oligarchs, such as [Gazprom head Rem] Vyakhirev or [Menatep group head Mikhail] Khodorkovsky who own and control assets such as natural resources irrespective of their relationship with the state. Also, presidential candidates on both the right and the left are not against him. Yuri Kostenko [Rukh faction leader] and his followers recently acknowledged that Moroz is a ‘good’ presidential candidate. Of course Kuchma’s re-election team knows this too, and that’s why Kuchma’s election team is doing as much as they can to impede Moroz’s campaign. They are doing everything in their power to keep Moroz from reaching the second round. …
Kuchma’s election campaign advisers are Peter Lelyk and [Myhailo] Pohrebynsky [director of Kyiv Center for Political Studies and Conflict].
Q: Who is Peter Lelyk?
A: He is an outstanding specialist on elections. After Tabachnyk, he was the second most important member of Kuchma’s election campaign team in 1994. … Lelyk has an extraordinary memory; he knows all of Ukraine’s electoral nooks and crannies. Until lately, he has been in charge of Kuchma’s campaign, with Pohrebynsky on board doing the popularity ratings. Andry Derkach [parliamentary deputy and part owner with Vadim Rabinovich of Era television company] and his father Leonid Derkach [head of the secret service] are also on Kuchma’s team, along with Oleksandr Volkov [parliament deputy and oligargh], who is in charge of campaign financing. Ihor Tabachnyk recently took charge of Kuchma’s re-election bid.
Q: Did Russian businessmen influence course of the 1994 elections? Will they have an impact on these elections?
A: No. The race in 1994 was financed by two international companies, Nordex [accused by the U.S. government of being involved with organized crime] supported Kravchuk, and Subito – a Ukrainian-Hungarian-Dutch joint venture whose director was Volkov – funded Kuchma.
Q: Do you think that Kuchma comprehends what is happening in the economy and in the current election race?
A: No. I don’t think he ever understood. Those who worked with him on the 1994 campaign appreciated his limitations and accepted them.
Q: What brought you to work for his election campaign in 1994?
A: I thought he was a much more decent candidate than Kravchuk, who was unabashedly corrupt.
Q: How do you see the West’s position vis-a-vis Ukraine?
A: Negatively. I think the West has taken the short-term view from the start. Western assistance to Ukraine should have been targeted at supporting democratic and not economic reform.
