Region: Ukraine's ex-presidents live large

By Yuriy Onyshkiv

For the Kyiv Post

KYIV

Ukrainians heroically propelled him to power during the 2004 Orange Revolution, believing in promises to strip insiders, oligarchs and bureaucrats of their many privileges and imprison the criminals among them.

Instead, Viktor Yushchenko's chaotic presidential term became one of the biggest disappointments in independent Ukraine's history, as corruption spread during his five-year reign and high-level impunity and immunity remained.

Now, the defeated third president of Ukraine continues to live in privileged luxury at the expense of millions of taxpayers who are among the poorest in Europe.

A half-year after leaving office, Yushchenko continues to make use of the state-owned presidential residence, carrying on a tradition of sweetheart deals for the exclusive ex-presidents' club whose only other members are Leonid Kravchuk (who served from 1991 to 1994) and Leonid Kuchma (1994-2005).

An Aug. 17 visit to the estate in the well-guarded and posh Koncha Zaspa Kyiv suburb found security guards tight-lipped. But they admitted it was the location for finding Yushchenko for an interview, saying, "Yes, if you have permission ahead of time to enter."

Oleh Rybachuk, chief of staff from 2005 to 2006 under Yushchenko, says keeping hold of the presidential residence after leaving office is "disgraceful."

"We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayers' money being spent on a former president," he said.

Rybachuk could not give a specific figure on how much money is spent for such perks and added that even while serving as presidential chief of staff, he could not get hold of such information.

"This absolutely doesn't correspond to the European practice according to which presidents and prime ministers move out of their residences after they no longer hold the positions," Rybachuk said.

Unlike in Ukraine, in the European Union, an official can be forced to resign after being caught using a service vehicle for personal purposes.

Iryna Vannikova, Yushchenko's press secretary, said her boss will not stay in the compound permanently.

"Yushchenko lives in the residence only temporarily, [because] his house in Novi Bezradychi is being renovated after a fire last April. Should Ukrainian presidents live on the street? Let's treat a president of Ukraine with some respect," Vannykova said, although she could not explain why the ex-president had not chosen to live in his Kyiv apartment or dacha near Yaremcha, in western Ukraine, which he also owns.

Yushchenko is no exception in his desire to keep a soft nest after leaving office.

Kuchma, whose corrupt and authoritarian reign deeply embedded lawlessness in the country's political culture, also has a state-owned dacha in Koncha Zaspa. Kravchuk, the onetime ideological chief for Soviet Ukraine's Communist Party, also lives in a state-owned house in the elite suburb.

Hanna Herman, deputy head of President Viktor Yanukovych's administration, gave a shrugging "Why not?" response when asked why Yushchenko still keeps his presidential digs.

"Leonid Kravchuk keeps his presidential residence; so does Leonid Kuchma," Herman said. "So why not let President Yushchenko stay at his residence, as well? After all, this is a tradition of the country."

Herman directed further inquiries to the presidential administration's State Affairs department, better known by its Ukrainian acronym, DUSIA. Officials there said more than $2 million is spent annually to support state residencies in Koncha Zaspa, but did not elaborate further.

While effectively privatizing a state palace may rank as small on the scale of official abuses, Yushchenko's behavior only strengthens the historical view that - far from being a democratic reformer - the third president was part and parcel of the same rotten system he inherited from Kuchma, Kravchuk and, before them, the Soviet leaders who ruled Ukraine.

After gaining less than 5 percent of the vote in the first round of the presidential election Jan. 17, a resounding repudiation from his constituents, Yushchenko essentially asked his successor for a favor: He would keep his residence if Yanukovych sanctioned it.

At the time, Yushchenko argued that he needed a place to live after a fire had damaged the large estate he owns Novi Bezradychi, some 35 kilometers from Kyiv.

Sources said Yushchenko currently spends much of his time traveling abroad.

Earlier this year, political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said that passage of a clear law on presidential entitlements is the only solution.

"This is what we have left from the Soviet Union, where most top government members held their dachas for life," Fesenko said. "Of course, this is not the case in any civilized country. Partly because of that, we are also among countries with the highest number of state residences."

Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at onyshkiv@kyivpost.com