It is interesting that everything that followed continued within the same framework — attacks on the “achievements” of corruption and its defense against these attacks. Generally speaking, a crisis of corruption began — a very interesting phenomenon unknown to science. It is obvious that corruption, as a method available to everyone, could no longer ensure the “resolution of issues” and, which is extremely important, could not guarantee the same notorious stability that is, of course, necessary for economic activity.
This process began almost immediately after the arrival of the “first Tymoshenko” and only intensified afterward. Corruption was becoming less and less accessible, less and less reliable, and more and more expensive. From a mass phenomenon, it was turning into a privilege. But nothing else was emerging in its place, since “acting according to the law” in most cases means, at best, working at a loss.
The system attempted to resolve this political-economic crisis during the early elections of 2007, when the functions of arbiter (boss of bosses) de facto returned to the president — functions that Kuchma had wielded and which form the basis of the Ukrainian corrupt political-economic model.
However, the processes had clearly gone beyond control. The global financial crisis only worsened the situation. But it also became a kind of test of the middle class’s ability to produce certain people capable of carrying out the function of change. So far, the middle class is receiving failing grades on this test. Take Comrade Romanenko, for instance, who recently published his group’s political platform. Two points there clearly indicate that this group plays a conservative role in defending the corrupt model. The first — stability is stated outright as the group’s goal; the second — the necessity of strengthening presidential power is emphasized at every turn. Stability today, as we have established, is the stability of the corrupt model of relations, and presidential power ensures its political implementation. In other words, the middle class is still thinking about “the good old Kuchma,” who simply cannot return, because the world has already changed.