While watching U.S President-elect Donald Trump’s press conference on Jan.11, I finally understood why Americans voted for him as the 45th president of the United States. Trump attacked the “biased media” and made strange promises such as “Mexico will pay for the wall, but it will be reimbursed by the U.S.”
I’ve heard odd rhetoric like this before.
When his attorney Sheri Dillon said that Trump was not going to sell his multibillion-dollar business empire, but will put it in a blind trust, as “selling (the businesses) would not eliminate possibilities of conflicts of interest,” it all fell into place for me.
Trump is a typical Ukrainian-style politician – an emotional, rude, self-centered and charismatic populist. I see him as America’s first oligarch.
In Ukraine, we keep electing populists and oligarchs and suffer the consequences later. We have already pretty good survival skills and have got used to tough living conditions and corruption.
I understood why Americans chose Trump. He wasn’t a typical politician of the type that people have tired of. That’s why they went for the candidate who promised to make America great again.
In 2014, I and millions other Ukrainians, made the same choice, and voted for a guy who promised the same for Ukraine.
“Live in a new way!” said the campaign slogan of Petro Poroshenko, a business mogul and billionaire – the owner of the Roshen Confectionary Corporation, Channel 5, the Leninska Kuznya shipyard, an international investment bank, and much more.
As of May 2015, Poroshenko’s net worth was about $720 million, but back then he promised he would sell his businesses so that he could concentrate on making Ukraine prosperous.
As a voter, I decided to vote for Poroshenko partly because he, as a successful businessman, seemed to be a good manager. His desire to sacrifice his cozy billionaire’s lifestyle to serve the country, and his promise to end Russia’s war against Ukraine in the Donbas within a year, as well as reclaim Crimea from the Kremlin, won over post-revolutionary Ukrainians.
Furthermore, we had no other options. His main competitor was the crooked Yulia Tymoshenko, an ex-prime minister, ex-gas queen and Batkivshchyna Party leader – a member of the very political elite that Ukrainians had just overthrown.
But almost as soon as Poroshenko became Ukraine’s fifth president, he forgot about most of his promises: while he indeed placed Roshen in a blind trust, it took him two years to confirm he had done so. Meanwhile, according to the Panama Papers leak, he started to use shady offshore schemes, and he has publically refused to sell his TV station, Channel 5.
He positioned himself a fighter against the oligarchy, but during his presidency his wealth has increased by more than $100 million, to $858 million, according to the Forbes.ua ranking of the wealthiest Ukrainians in 2016.
Then there’s the wall.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the ex-prime minister, was “tough on Russia” to the point of promising to build a wall between the two nations.
Our wall would have been cheaper than Trump’s proposed wall on the Mexican border, which would cost $12 billion, according to the BBC. It was estimated that Yatsenyuk’s wall would cost only $29 million. Construction started in 2014 on the three-meter high fence and deep trench along Ukraine’s border with Russia, but the National Anti-Corruption Bureau has already opened up an investigation into a case of embezzlement involving funds to build it.
Trump has so much in common with Ukrainian politicians – not only in populist ambitions, but also in his contempt for free speech and journalists.
Sure we get facts wrong, and regret our mistakes. But top politicians should have respect for our role in democracy.
Instead, Trump argues with journalists and insults them, calls Buzzfeed “a failing pile of garbage” and, in general, denigrates those who dare criticize the great narcissist.
The same happens in Ukraine. I recall a Poroshenko press conference in 2015, when he noted that Hromadske. TV reporter Khrystyna Bondarenko, who used to work for the president’s Channel 5, had had a bigger audience while working for his channel.
I could continue to draw parallels between Trump and Ukrainian politicians – such as hiring relatives and business partners for government posts, disrespecting women, and other outrages.
So: America will soon have its first Ukrainian-style oligarch president. Maybe the unpredictable Trump will surprise us all, keep his promises, and really make America great again.
But I doubt it. From Ukraine’s experience, I know that when people elect an oligarch, they should be prepared for years of disappointment, shady deals and scandal.
