Future That We Almost Had

Don't look for profit. Just keep defending your values.

I am watching the meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The first meeting of the new convocation.

Live.

The elected parliament.

The elections are recognized by the international community.

Parties and those elected by the first-past-the-post system participated.

There are factions in the parliament, and there is competition between them.

So far, there's the mono-majority (a new political term) of one party, but it's already clear that it won't last long and in any case doesn't rule out open and contentious debate.

The acting president (the sixth!), elected at fair elections, is in the hall. His irreconcilable rival, the previous president (the fifth!) is present in the hall as well.

The Presidium calmly, without panic manages the problematic meeting. But there are "guys" in it, not who have neither parliamentary nor systemic political experience.

The journalists are on the sidelines. Streaming, facebooking and tweeting, they politely pull the deputies' sleeves, and they do not shrink, but comment.

It all reminds me a lot both of the sessions of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR in 1989 and of the sessions of our Supreme Soviet in the early 90s. Why is that? There is life both here and there. There is a prospect, a desire to improve one's life at last.

Here's an interesting thing: Ukrainians chose a most non-systemic president, and then they chose the majority of the Rada out of the "servants of the people" - a direct path to authoritarianism, it would seem. But there is no such feeling. I want to keep my fingers crossed to make it all work out.

I do not want to evaluate neither the new President of Ukraine, nor the new Rada. The essence is not in their positive or negative qualities.

Ukraine has preserved and strengthened the institution of elections!

In the war, Ukraine defended the right of people to elect!

Ukraine has defended its right to develop as a European independent state!

Ukraine has given a clear answer to the question so loved by Putin and Lukashenka’s lackeys: who else but him?

Not him! Absolutely not him!

It is not even possible to compare the "house of representatives" created by Lukashenka in Belarus with what we see on the air.

It's hard even to compare the "house of representatives," a generation of slave psychology and dictator's high-handedness, with something else.

The only association I have with this body is the disgusting semi-liquid thin broth, with which they tried to feed the prisoners in one of the colonies, which I had a chance to visit against my will. They tried to feed us with rotten cabbage and potato stew. Even the convicts who were the lowest of the low poured that stuff back into the tank. They said even the pigs that lived on the colony were squeamish about it.

I like potatoes very much, just like any other Belarusian. I really like cabbage cooked in different ways. But what they used to make of it in the colony was an act of cynical mockery of these noble products. I remember I used to think, pouring another portion into the tank: how do they have to hate potatoes and cabbage to rotten them first, and then stew that rottenness?

The same feelings are caused by the "house of representatives": the thin broth made of rotten groceries.

I also recalled that Verkhovna Rada saved Ukraine.

A middling Verkhovna Rada: half and halfer. They served more or less to different oligarchs, showed loyalty to Yanukovich and together with him, they led to the annexation of Crimea and Russia's invasion of Donbass.

And it was this very Verkhovna Rada that, having felt the sentiments of the people after the Maidan, having no president, no prime minister, no actual government, took full responsibility for Ukraine, for independence and statehood. It stopped the Russian invasion and defended Ukraine.

I'm watching live as the Prime Minister of Ukraine, Defense Minister, and Foreign Minister were appointed. I see in the hall my longtime friends and acquaintances, who will never betray the interests of Ukraine, and I cast a spell on them: just do not repeat the mistakes of the previous authorities regarding the regime in Belarus, just pass the test for democracy. Don't look for profit. Just keep defending the values.

You are our future, which we have almost had!

We are with you, Belarus is with you!

While Lukashenka is with Putin.

To your and our freedom!

Andrei Sannikov, coordinator of the civil campaign European Belarus, Facebook