There will be no new "Maidan", and Poroshenko was blown away: what did the protest near Zelensky's Office show

In Ukraine, regular protests have already become something absolutely familiar, and if earlier mass noisy actions caused discussion and an emotional reaction of the population, now they are perceived as part of everyday life, and in order to pay attention to them, an ever brighter show is needed.

On July 27, Poroshenko's "European Solidarity" tried to arrange another episode of such a show, reproaching Zelensky for allegedly surrendering Ukraine's interests in the Donbass. However, the rally turned out to be weak, and the main inspirer of this action did not even appear, preferring to rest in Turkey.

Most protests have no ideological component

The most striking and aggressive protests are organized to support individual politicians and activists, rather than ideas and social problems: these are the protests of the action in support of Sergei Sternenko, and the protests of Petro Poroshenko (especially during the days of his summons for interrogation). The organized creative show leads to the fact that during the days of protests the information feed of most media is filled with step-by-step broadcasts of ongoing events, which creates the illusion of the scale of these actions.

There is no ideological component in such protests, they are aimed at creating a negative attitude towards the current government, and their main goal is to change the information agenda in favor of the organizer of the protest.

At the same time, much less attention is paid to social protests (doctors, workers, against the increase in tariffs, against signing the Memorandum with the IMF, etc.) due to the lack of shows, sufficient involvement of the media, funding and the interest of political leaders in them.

Real support for Poroshenko

Protest outside Zelensky's office, 27 July. Source: Klymenko Time

The meaning of yesterday's protest action of the Poroshenko team reached the point of absurdity: the protest was directed against a truce. At the same time, Poroshenko himself was not even present there.

The attempts of the fifth president to create the image of the “father of the nation” and the “grey-haired hetman” do not lead to an expansion of support for him and his political force: according to the latest opinion polls, if the presidential elections were held in the near future, a representative of HLE.

That is, the consolidation of the nationalist electorate around him is no longer working, and protest support for Zelensky and his team remains at a fairly high level with a partial return of the electorate to people from the blue and white forces.

For this reason, the main goal of Poroshenko now is not a change of power in the country, but a victory in local elections in the Lviv region, where his supporters are most concentrated.

External factor

Against the backdrop of what is happening, the factor of possible external interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine is also important.

The start for Euromaidan was the suspension by the government of Ukraine of preparations for the signing of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU on the proposed terms and the desire to revise the proposed text (demands for the resignation of the government and the president appeared later). This was done in order to protect the Ukrainian manufacturer and the need to modernize the economy in order to maintain competition with European manufacturers, which will arise after the signing of the document.

The need to revise the terms of the Association Agreement in May of this year was announced by the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Vadim Prystaiko, and in July by the Minister of Economy Igor Petrashko. According to the latter, it is important for Ukraine to have a zero trade balance with the EU. However, it is extremely doubtful that the EU will agree to make changes to the detriment of its own economic interests.

Together with this, two laws have been adopted in Ukraine that are criticized in the West: on reducing tariffs for green energy (Western investors who disagree with this threaten the government with courts) and on localization (a law protecting and lobbying the interests of a Ukrainian producer will come into force in 2021 of the year). Also, there was a change of the head of the National Bank to the person Zelensky and there is a high probability of dismissal of the person Gontareva Ekaterina Rozhkova from the post of deputy chairman of the NBU, which reduces the possibility of direct influence of the IMF on the policy of the National Bank.

That is, we can state a trend towards reducing the number of “pro-Westerners” in Zelensky’s entourage and removing their state structures, as well as attempts to protect the Ukrainian manufacturer, which will reduce the profits of those representatives of the West who worked in protected industries.

This means that there is a possibility of increased pressure on Zelensky in order to cancel the adopted norms and return control of the same National Bank, including through increased protests within the country and Western support for the protesters.

Is popular protest real now?

An all-Ukrainian protest against the government is now unlikely - precisely because of the artificiality of the protest agenda. Even if the image of the current government is formed as “criminal”, “pro-Russian”, “corrupt”, etc., the population will not come out in support of Poroshenko as his main opponent - due to the extremely high anti-rating of the politician. And given the significant distrust of Ukrainians in all currently popular politicians, one can state the absence of an opportunity to expand their support outside the personal electoral base.

It is not yet clear who, if necessary, could be relied on (Sentsov and Sternenko, promoted in Ukraine, will be able to receive only minimal support and will not become people's leaders).

Therefore, an all-Ukrainian protest with the aim of changing the government in the country is now impossible, although attempts may be made to stir up the situation in order to consolidate the electorate in local elections.

In any case, the protests are expected to intensify in the fall, closer to the local elections, and it is likely that more than one Ukrainian nationalist opposition will be interested in them.