You're reading: Saakashvili team seeks to revolutionize public relations policy

ODESA, Ukraine - Seeing an oblast governor out and about on the streets of their hometown, being able to ask him any question they want, and even just shaking hands with him was a novel experience for most of the residents of Odesa Oblast.

But this is a
practice that ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who was appointed to
head the region in May, has now made routine. It contrasts sharply with the
secretive, Soviet-style behavior of most other Ukrainian top officials up until
now.

Saakashvili’s
efforts to introduce a more transparent, open government are aimed at selling
the reform message to the public and getting grass-roots support for the
radical changes he’s trying to push through.

To get feedback
directly from the public, Saakashvili and his team have regularly met with
locals in the central squares of various towns and cities in Odesa Oblast, with
anyone allowed to attend and ask the governor a question – something that
previous governors have never done. Saakashvili usually takes stuffy and
uncomfortable public transport to get to such meetings, and talks to fellow
passengers on the way.

Wearing a t-shirt
or a button-up shirt without a necktie, Saakashvili intentionally cultivates an
informal and down-to-earth image to contrast with business-style dress of his
more formal predecessors.

The regional
government is also planning to create in September an entirely new reception
desk for people to lodge complaints with the authorities.

The new desk will
be more convenient for the public, and will speed up the process by using
electronic documentation, Maria Gaidar, a Russian-born advisor to Saakashvili,
said in an interview with the Kyiv Post. The timeframe for the processing of
complaints will be cut to one-two days, down from the present 25-30, she said.

Another change
scheduled for September is the launch of a center to provide public services in
a fast and efficient way.

These include the
issuing of passports and the registration of businesses, non-governmental
organizations, real estate, ownership rights, land plots and place of
residence. While now these procedures take a lot of time, the center is
expected to carry them out within an hour or a day, Gaidar said.

Saakashvili’s
team argue that by improving communication with the people on the ground and
providing them with the services they need, they will drastically change their
attitude towards the government. Specifically, they expect pro-Russian and
anti-Kyiv sentiment in some parts of the region to subside as a result.

“There are
villages where there is no public transportation,” Yulia Marushevska, a
EuroMaidan activist turned a deputy governor of Odesa Oblast, told the Kyiv
Post. “Public transport doesn’t go to my grandmother’s village (of Sadove in
Odesa Oblast). If you want to get out of this village, and you don’t have a
car, bicycle or tractor, you have to walk three kilometers by foot to the
nearest public transport stop.”

Moreover,
ordinary people are just plain fed up with a corrupt bureaucracy that ignores
their needs.

“Southern Ukraine
is a territory of permanent lawlessness, and it is dominated by feudal lords,”
Marushevska said.

The uncaring
attitude of the authorities and a lack of basic public services is a rich
breeding ground for Russian propaganda, which exploits these weaknesses to
demonize Ukraine.

Russian
television is especially influential in Ukrainian Bessarabia in the southwest
of Odesa Oblast, where people either have satellite dishes or pick up signals
from television towers in Transdniester, the Kremlin-backed breakaway part of
neighboring Moldova.

The only way to
combat this influence is to change the government’s attitude towards the
people, Marushevska believes.

“We can tell them
a hundred times how great Ukraine is and station soldiers there, but it’s
better, more efficient and a more long-term solution to build a road there and
provide the minimum infrastructure facilities,” she said. “Give people real
stuff that can be touched. This is the best thing we can do to change their
attitudes in our favor.”

This is the
sentiment explicitly voiced by the people themselves, Marushevska said.

“They tell me ‘We
don’t care who the government is. Whoever builds the road will be the
government,’” Marushevska said.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be
reached at
[email protected].