The Ukrainian parliament on July 22 approved amendments that effectively destroy the independence of Ukraine’s two key anti-corruption institutions, according to opposition lawmakers and watchdogs.
The legislation grants the prosecutor general new powers over investigations led by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and cases led by the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).
The step comes as Ukrainian authorities ramp up pressure against the two agencies established as part of the anti-graft reforms after the EuroMaidan Revolution.
Ukraine is still a democracy. There are varying degrees of freedom and stability obviously but the underlying system is there.
The revolution didn’t magically wipe out oligarchs and corruption. Ukraine is still an oligarchy, not a democracy. Do we not remember that before Zelenskyy, there was Poroshenko, a literal oligarch?
We shouldn’t whitewash history as it’s happening, just because someone is on the right side.
I’m fine with this logic, but it also has to extend logically to the United States no longer being a democracy, and it’s arguable that a number of EU states would also qualify.
I can’t argue against that.
I’ve never considered the US a democracy. It’s a one party state with the American exceptionalism of needing to have two parties to one up the other one party states.
Hungary, Bulgaria
Which countries would qualify as democratic outside the EU and the Western world, if any?
By their logic, not even the EU and the Western world could be considered democratic because oligarchs and corruption exist.
That is true.
No true full democracy exists.
The two states closest to one in my opinion though are Switzerland and Cuba. Both with their own limitations preventing them from being considered a full democracy.
Switzerland essentially outsourced it’s entire working class to immigrants who cannot vote. Therefore it’s just a democracy of the wealthy. Meanwhile Cuba needs to maintain revolutionary mass organisations to prevent counter-revolutionaries from hijacking their democracy.
The US has been an oligarchy for a long time. It was only briefly interrupted by short periods of democracy.
Heck, many EU states are still monarchies, with a representative system slapped on top. As long as there is something like a “royal family” whose privileged status is inherited, the country shouldn’t be considered a democracy. Equality in the face of the law is a core principal of democracy and any formal royal family is a clear violation of that.