CONFLICT IN UKRAINE

The Conflict in Ukraine sprouted from the relevant source of tension and the
origin of a strong injustice in society which is the reigning of oligarchic political
system. It is therefore urgent and somehow critical to pull apart this system and
produce new rules to lift Ukrainian political life to higher standards based on
fundamental democratic principles which aim to reduce the conflicts of interests
within the society can be derived from the Philosophy of Montesquieu. And through
the combination of the best features of Monarchy, Democracy and Aristocracy,
three branches of government were formed which must be completely separated to
derive the goodness in this system. Most of these necessary changes are known by
the Ukrainians, the main points were even fixed in the coalition agreement signed
after the parliamentary elections in October 2014.
The issue of injustice and the inequality in the distribution of national
wealth is one of the key issues in Ukraine. This holds true as what Jean Bodin had
stated that the extreme distribution of wealth leads to social revolution. The
oppression of the poor which results to willingness of the poor to overthrow the
wealthy group of people. Reforming and changing the rules of the old corrupted
system is a must to prevent the massive corruption. The application of this
philosophy was proven to be true by a famous economist and Nobel laureate Joseph
Stiglitz who noted in his last book that the issue of inequality and injustice is a
political choice, the result of the accumulation of the unfair political decisions and
misplaced priorities which led to formulation of coalition agreement.

If this coalition is the answer to the foregoing problem, how then to explain
the difficulties of the realization and implementation of the coalition agreement?
Why are reforms not implemented even though everyone know what should be
done? The answer is simply logical, it is because of the resistance to change
expressed by the old system which contradicted the definition of Montesquieu of
law which should be relative to the interest of the people of each country. But for
the successful change management in this reforms period, the resistance
phenomenon should be taken into account. Certain people specifically those who
have the wealth fear changes because they might loose certain benefits such as
resources, influence, power, social status, etc.
System analysis of Ukrainian political situation shows clearly a separate
group of conservative actors (certain representatives of the old political parties of
the past, some bureaucrats and officials who are part of the system that needs to
be changed), who talk a lot about reforms, but do less or nothing in fight against
corruption or purification of the political system. The paradox is that if they try to do
some changes but as long as they still attempt to win something or to avoid any
losses, the ending result would still be unfavorable to the majority because of the
too much power is concentrated to support their own ambitions or to strengthen
personal positions. The last Ukraine- EU summit stressed the absolute necessity to
begin finally doing real reforms, because otherwise Ukraine risks losing the support
of Western partners in the near future.
On the other side of the story, Civil Society in Ukraine has dominated the
Independence Square objecting to their presidents unexpected decision who signed
the trade agreement with the EU. This decision is not favored by the citizens, which

sparked the uprising and the demand of the resignation of the President Viktor F.
Yanukovich and his government. Public fury is caused also because they do not want
Russian influence in the decisions taken by their government about their country. As
seen, this situation is a perfect example of the civil society challenging their
government because of not fulfilling its obligations derived from a social contract.
These phenomenon contradicted Hobbes philosophy and favored those of Lockes
and Rousseaus. Hobbes stated in his social contract that human beings are
deprived of free will and they should obey their sovereign no matter what but later
with the theories of Lock and Rousseau, this concept changed. According to the two
latter philosophers, government legitimacy is based not only on the initial consent
for its foundation but also on its functionality later on. This means that if the
government does not perform its responsibilities and obligations correctly, the
people can challenge the current government and change it.
This situation may seem paradoxical: the elite avoids real changes to escape
losing their benefits; the civil society and business community understand that
changes are inevitable. As stated by former Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak
(2014), the political will exists within civil society, but the political will is not strong
enough among the political elite, as we have seen through the lack of real actions,
such as fight against corruption. Close ties and strong relationships between
political elites make implementing and enforcing policy changes particularly
challenging.