Parliament restores independence to Ukraine’s corruption-fighters

Ukraine’s latest political drama ended with what felt almost like an anticlimax. In two swift readings on July 31st, Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada, passed a bill restoring the full independence of the country’s anti-corruption bodies. The ballot was all but unanimous: 331 deputies voted for the bill; nine abstained. None dared vote against it. The enthusiasm was striking, given that most of the MPs had taken the opposite position just nine days earlier.

The volte-face was driven less by any deeply felt change of heart than by fear of the consequences. After parliament passed a law on July 22nd reining in the anti-corruption agencies, protesters filled Ukraine’s streets. The country’s Western allies, who bankroll its government, made thinly veiled threats to withhold funds. Deputies knew they had to restore the agencies’ freedom or put tens of billions of dollars in crucial assistance at risk. But the story is far from over. The last nine days have left bad blood, and have failed to fix the problems that led Ukraine’s panicked leadership to rush through their ill-advised law in the first place.

In the weeks before the vote on July 22nd a struggle for control had been building between President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration and Ukraine’s various anti-corruption institutions. First the government refused to confirm Oleksandr Tsyvinskyi, a well-regarded detective, to the position of head of the Bureau of Economic Security, which investigates economic crimes. Then, in mid-July, it instigated spurious-looking charges against Vitaliy Shabunin, an anti-corruption activist. On the eve of the bill’s surprise introduction to parliament, swat teams conducted raids at the homes and offices of roughly 80 detectives from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (nabu). Some of the detectives say they were beaten up without provocation.

The charges ranged from alleged collaboration with Russia to old driving offences. It cannot be ruled out that there was some wrongdoing: few institutions in Ukraine are wholly clean, and even fewer are effective. But the timing was extremely suspect. The raids came as many of the same detectives were conducting investigations against people in the president’s inner circle. In June nabu issued formal charges against Oleksii Chernyshov, then a deputy prime minister and a close family friend of the Zelenskys, over allegedly corrupt property deals. That was a jolt. Reports later confirmed nabu was also investigating Rostyslav Shurma, a former deputy head of the presidential office, and Timur Mindich, a long-time business partner of Mr Zelensky.

Sources say Andriy Yermak, Mr Zelensky’s chief aide, led the efforts to fend off prosecutions. The idea was to subordinate the anti-corruption agencies to the prosecutor-general, Ruslan Kravchenko, a recent political appointee. Mr Yermak was abroad when protests broke out in response to the bill, and presidential insiders suggest that his once-unquestioned authority has taken a hit as a result. The task of damage control fell to the newly promoted deputy prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who liaised between MPs, anti-corruption officials and the presidential team. “Fedorov played a very positive role as a crisis manager, talking with everyone and finding a path through,” says Yaroslav Zhelezhnyak, an mp who criticised the original bill. The negotiations led to a new draft law that reverses essentially all of the earlier changes, though a face-saving clause requires polygraph tests within the anti-corruption institutions.

The rollback is a clear win for Ukraine’s democracy. It continues to function despite the war and despite some signs of creeping autocratic tendencies. The tough stand taken by European partners was crucial. But restoring the agencies’ legal independence does not remove the underlying problems that led to the crisis. These include the government’s determination to protect loyalists above all else, and its hyper-centralised decision-making process, which revolves around Mr Yermak. “The situation is irresolvable without a huge reboot,” says Daria Kaleniuk, an anti-corruption activist. “Zelensky simply has to choose between his inner circle and his legacy as a national leader.”

Neither does the vote resolve the pending anti-corruption investigations. These will now probably become even more urgent. Prior to the bill, nabu was not only investigating senior government officials; it was also looking into the activities of dozens of mps. Some of these saw no conflict of interest in voting for a bill that would have crippled the very bodies investigating them. According to a source close to nabu, many detectives are very angry with the government’s effort to paint them as criminals, or spies abetting Russian influence. “They were publicly humiliated by the presidential office,” the source says. “The detectives will investigate according to the laws, but they won’t give an inch now. Things have changed.” ■