This BBC piece looks at the efforts of the new administration of Viktor Yushchenko to put the cronyism and corruption of old-style Ukrainian politics behind.
Some excerpts:
Orange clean-up looms in Ukraine | |
| By Marina Denysenko BBC Ukrainian Service 
"My government will not take bribes. My government will not steal", Ukraine's new liberal President Viktor Yushchenko proclaimed as the new cabinet was triumphantly voted in by parliament last month.
Other key changes were looming: reviewing controversial privatisations, weeding out unfair tax privileges and improving the management of state monopolies by hiring new staff in open tenders. The ambitious plans are causing a stir in Ukraine's business community and among the public at large. Ukrainians accustomed to the cronyism and corruption associated with Mr Yushchenko's predecessor, Leonid Kuchma, were stunned by the new government's pledges. It was hard to believe that the interests of the powerful oligarchs controlling large chunks of Ukraine's economy could be trampled upon. |
However, it appears the new government has some learning to do. For example:
Many Ukrainians remain sceptical about the leadership's willingness to separate business from politics.
Ministers should hand their businesses over, President Yushchenko insisted - and not just to their families, but to outside managers.
Last month the pledge was tested when a scandal erupted over the newly appointed justice minister, Roman Zvarych.
The Ukrainian media claimed that the minister's wife was a top manager in an oil exporting company with illegal multi-million profits.
For the first time Ukraine witnessed a widely publicised conflict of interest concerning a government official. It was not resolved and the minister stayed in the government.
This is a story I really should monitor closely. Ukraine is the home of my ancestors and I still have relatives living there (although many have emigrated here).
Beyond that, it will be a fascinating study of watching a nation develop. Ukraine has many challenges. If one wants to use U.S. vernacular, it has a serious red state-blue state thing going on.
People in the Russian-dominated, industrial east look on those in Kyiv much like prairie people look on Torontonians: As a bunch of latte-sipping, pointy-headed intellectuals.
Culturally, western Ukraine, Yushchenko's base of support, feels more like central Europe, so it's no wonder the people there are more likely to look westward.
Here's hoping Yushchenko has the strength to fight the vampiric forces of corruption that have sucked the economic life out of Ukraine for so long, and the wisdom to bridge that country's two solitudes.