Kyiv, February 19, 2016. The Movement for Cleansing is launching two campaigns today. They will help civic society to consolidate, to exert pressure on all the branches of power to have country overcome political crisis and set off on the road to effective reforms. “The Movement for Cleansing sprung up in reaction to demand of society for change. It’s our response to corrupt authorities, total government failure and, mostly, reforms failure. Our task is showing there are many people who desire changes,” said Vasyl Hatsko, chairman of DemAlliance political party at a press briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. “Our objective is to change the dynamics in the country, change elites so that the decisions which are made would be understandable both to the society and our foreign partners,” said Sasha Borovik, advisor to the head of Odesa State Regional Administration.
The first initiative, One in a Million, was to collect signatures in support of the new “agenda” for the country that includes five basic demands. The first one is forming new reform government of technocrats, without the present prime-minister and parliamentary coalition formation. “We demand that the ministers, who consider themselves professionals, resign from the cabinet. We want to have pro-European coalition in the government, not a coalition with populist forces or the opposition block,” said Borovik. “It might be an interim coalition, but it must assume responsibility for making the most necessary steps, emphasized Valeriy Pekar, co-founder of the Nova Kraina civil platform. The second requirement is appointment of an independent general prosecutor, the third one – expansion of economic freedom. “We support radical, quickest possible privatization, the possibility for people to dispose of their land and their property; currency liberalization and fiscal reform.We believe that all the reforms are implementable, should there be political will, and these reforms will yield fast and visible results. If we fail to do it, we will face deepening of the political crisis and a collapse,” emphasized Volodymyr Fedoryn, co-founder of Bendukidze Free Market Center. The fourth point of the program is to introduce the principle of unavoidability of punishment. The fifth reform of the election legislation, which will allow “throwing oligarchs out of the politics”. According to Hatsko, it is necessary to refuse from the majority elections system, provide political powers with equal access to national media and change the very principle of the election campaign, limiting commercial political advertising and introducing new forms of candidates’ competition, “those providing the possibility to compete in terms of ideas and teams, not the money”.
Participants of the movement plan to travel around Ukraine to meet people as a part of One in a Million campaign. “We will visit 24 Ukrainian cities, holding round table discussions, press conferences, forums, meeting with people, where we will share our vision of Ukraine overcoming the crisis,” said Pekar. “We will collect 1 million signatures for resignation of this government. If the signatures are ineffective, we will retort to other peaceful forms of the protest”.
The second campaign suggests conducting Anticorruption forums in future to consolidate the public effort in fighting corruption, as well as creating initiative groups in all big cities to expose corrupt officials and inform people on the mechanisms of countering corruption. Hatsko emphasized that the funds to hold all these events will be collected through personal contributions via Internet.
Participants of the Movement for Cleansing emphasized once again that they treat themselves as a civic movement, united by one goal: “to free Ukraine from this trap at last, give new “agenda”, overcome corruption and modernize the country. They are not a political party. Nevertheless, Borovik added that the Movement might turn into a political force in future.
