The corruptions in the political parties are what cause the corruption in government as a whole. If the parties running the government have corruptions within their own parties, then they will bring their issues to the whole system of government.
One reason that the parties themselves deal with corruption is because of the lack of funds. Due to the large amount of poverty that exists within Ukraine, political parties cannot rely on donations from party members, but must find funds elsewhere. This has caused parties to be vehicles for business interests. Virtually all-powerful Ukrainian parties receive the majority of their funding from business interests. This leads to a large amount of corruption within the parties.
The parties’ platforms become based off their supporting business’s interests. This negatively affects the citizens, because decisions made are not necessarily always in the people’s best interest, but rather in the businesses’ best interest.
Also, due to the reliance on business donations, parties chose to have large business leaders as their candidate. This causes even more legislation and decisions to be made in the bussiness’s favor rather than the people’s favor. Overall it continues to contribute to the overall corruption of the Ukrainian government.
Another problem with the political parties is the large number of them. There are so many political parties that each individual party does not have many followers. This makes it very difficult for agreements to be made over specific issues. The legislatures cannot agree on many issues, so instead of getting things accomplished, everything stays the same. Oksana continues to tell me, “It is so frustrating watching the political parties fight and try to get legislation passed, because it is literally impossible due to the large amount of parties and lack of followers.”
Below is an article about the one current political issue that is going on now, regarding the current president. Take a look. It gives you a glimpse of some of the corruption they deal with when it comes to elections.
The corruption that exists in the Ukraine law enforcement is one of the major factors that hold Ukraine back from competing with the rest of the world. One reason for the extreme corruption is because almost all crime in Ukraine combines the use of government officials’ access to information or goods with the use of organized criminals. Almost all crime is organized crime. The corruption in Ukraine’s law enforcement sector is seen as one of the worst in the world.
Drug traffickers, as well as other domestic and foreign crime groups, launder money through casinos, exchange bureaus, and the banks. The banks provide groups with businesses’ profitability and asset information to help the criminal groups extort money from them. Criminals and public officials often collude in this effort. Criminals, for example, extort money from businesses by threatening to sell the information they illegally obtain from banks to the tax police. Tax officials are sometimes willing to share their information about businesses with crime groups in return for a share of the money they extort from businesses. These are only some examples of organized crime in Ukraine.
The organized criminals are not shy when doing their “jobs.” Unlike in most countries, where criminals try to hide their acts, in Ukraine they do it out and in the open. Citizens witness acts of crime everyday. Oksana remembers witnessing many different trafficking crimes in act. One of her scariest experiences she said was when her mom and her were on vacation.
“My mom and I were in our hotel room when all of a sudden someone bangs on the door. My mom answered the door and a man was there. He told us we must leave our room now. My mom realized what was going on and told them that she refused to leave. So we stayed in the room and watched them do their business. They came and started removing all of the tiles from the ceiling, pulling all of the pictures off of the walls, tearing the bed frames apart, and cutting holes in the wall. Then they started pulling large amount of cigarettes out from all of those places. They just pulled hundreds and hundreds of cartons out of the room and moved them outside. We stepped outside and realized that they were doing this in every single room of the hotel. There were tons of families waiting outside for their rooms to be emptied. What made the event more odd was that there were police officers outside supervising the event. It almost seemed as if they were making sure nothing got out of control and no one tried to fight the men. After, everyone went back to his or her lives, just like nothing had happened. This was one of the largest crimes I have ever witnessed”
Oksana told me the only reason her mom understood what was going on was because she had seen it happen before. It was nothing that they had never experienced before. One reason why public officials have the incentive to resort to partaking in criminal activities is because they face such a low income and there is very little opportunity for advancement. They feel the only way to support themselves is to be paid off by the criminals. Unless the Ukrainian government accepts adequate laws and procedures nothing will be fixed.
Judicial sector:
The judicial sector of the government is usually seen as the most corrupt system in Ukraine. The judicial sector is supposed to offer its citizens fair and equal justice, but instead, it supplies the opposite. Political leaders have the power to make many decisions on business deals and property without risk of any judicial review. This makes the Ukrainian civilians not able to have any trust in their government. People should be able to trust and support their government, but in Ukraine it is impossible. “Only 10 percent of Ukrainians have confidence in the judicial system, according to the MCC survey. The unfairness of the judicial system was viewed as a serious problem by 79.3 percent of respondents. The same survey indicated that 49 percent of Ukrainians perceived the court system as corrupt” (Neutze). The people greatly see the amount of corruption in the government, but have no way to fight against it.
A few reasons why the judicial sector is so corrupt are due to the lack of number of judges and their low salaries. This makes them very susceptible to bribery and extortion. The judiciary is very vulnerable to corruption due to Ukrainian laws. The laws were drafter very quickly after Ukraine gained its independence. Many of the laws contradict each other, so it is very easy to use the laws to manipulate a way out of a situation.
Many people know that the corruption needs to be fixed, but instead of working to fix the problem, many continue to point fingers and place the blame on other sectors of government. The corruption in the judicial sector cannot be fixed until people stop blaming others and come together to create a plan to overcome the corruption.
How are Ukrainians dealing with the corruption? Ovbiosly this is a tremendous struggle for Ukraine's people. So how do they deal with it?
“Some people stay and deal with the corruption. They have nowhere to go and no money to go anywhere else, so they are forced to stay. The select few who are fortunate enough to have family elsewhere and have enough money to leave, attempt to get a green card to leave. When I say attempt, I mean it is rare for a family to actually get one. Getting a green card is extremely difficult. It took my family 3 tries to finally be accepted and given one. We were one of the lucky ones.”
“My family and I left Ukraine when I was ten years old to get away for the corruption. My family wanted my brother and I to have opportunities in life, which do not exist in Ukraine. We came to gain an education and have the chance to make something of ourselves. Yes, we struggled greatly, but through our hard work and perseverance we were able to live a happy life here. My parents have learned how to make a living and I am here at Loyola University. I could say we have become very successful. We are one of the few success stories to make it our of Ukraine and succeed.”
Many of you might be wandering why does corruption exist?
Well many factors contribute to the amount of corruption that exists in Ukraine. Here is a list of a few:
· An incomplete and inadequate legal framework exists in Ukraine.
· The law enforcement is very selective of what laws are enforced and when to exercise discretion.
· There is an extreme amount of regulation on the economy by the federal government.
· Collusive ties exist between all of the political and economic elite.
· People are unable to gain access to public information of the government decisions and operations.
· The people strongly resist decentralizing the governmental authority and resources used by the government to the regional and local levels. This could help break the corruptive networks.
· The people have a high tolerance for corrupt practices.
Okasana repeatedly told me, “that the corruption will not be eliminated. It has gone to far and the people have learned to accept. Corruption is all they know, so they deal with it.”
In other words, corruption will never be eliminated until other greater forces come in and take it on themselves to fix the Ukrainian government. Another force must come in a take control of all of these factors to create a successful and functioning democracy.
