Mykola Tomenko: Ukraine that is being developed by the Acting Authorities is the Ukraine of Minority
"Analysis of the initiatives, projects and actions of the acting authorities gives reasons to declare that the authorities considerably restrict the circles of their followers, losing public support and advocating values that spilt Ukraine, not consolidate it", Mykola Tomenko, Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, made this statement at the briefing in the Parliament.
He stated that this fact was proved by the results of the latest national public opinion poll on the attitude of the citizens towards the social values and strategies of the country development, conducted by Ukrainian Democratic Circle on request of the Institute of Politics on 15 September 2010.
"The majority of the citizens, namely 56,4%, believe that all the processes in Ukraine are wrong", M. Tomenko announced. The situation has deteriorated, as according to the similar public opinion poll in May, only 35,7% of the Ukrainian citizens believed that Ukraine took a wrong direction of the development.
The Deputy Chairman of the Parliament also stated that the strategy of amending the Constitution advocated by the President´s team contradicted public expectations and intentions. Pursuant to the poll, the majority of Ukrainians (56,2%) believe that it would be better not to change the Constitution but guarantee its realization. M. Tomenko also explained that only 13,3% of respondents called for returning to the Constitution of 1996.
"Attitude of the Ukrainians to ‘the Kharkiv pact´ has also changed considerably", the Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine stated. He declared that if the referendum about this issue were held today, only 45,8% of the citizens would vote for the issue, whereas in May this figure totaled 54,3%.
The society is worried by the changes in the social sphere. "The public is convinced that the actions of power in the sphere of culture and historical traditions is of anti-Ukrainian character", he emphasised. Thus, 38,3% believe that newly-elected authorities support the Ukrainian traditions. However, the majority of respondents (43,9%) is of different opinion, 13,6% out of them being convinced that the authorities support Soviet culture and traditions and 30,3% - Russian culture and traditions.
"There is a a growing tendency to believe that censorship flourishes in Ukraine", M. Tomenko stressed. He announced that almost 37,1% of Ukrainians believe that the situation with the freedom of speech in Ukraine worsened and the censorship experienced its revival. "As it is known, authority representatives daily declare that the problems with censorship and freedom of speech are the fantasies of opposition, the society denying it", he reminded.