Kyiv, Ukraine – Last week, hundreds of Ukrainians rallied in several cities to protest the government’s attempt to curb the independence of anticorruption watchdogs.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on July 22 signed a bill into law, which would revoke the autonomy of key agencies – the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).
The rare protest in the war-torn country forced the Ukrainian president to introduce a new draft bill to restore the independence of NABU and SAPO, which have been established to investigate high-level corruption and are widely seen as a symbol of democratic reforms.
So, why did Zelenskyy try to curb powers of the anticorruption agencies, and will his action dent public trust in the government crucial at a time of war against Russia?
Why are Ukrainians protesting?
The nationwide protests erupted in the wake of the July 22 vote in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s lower house of parliament, to approve the bill that allows the prosecutor general to oversee the two anticorruption agencies.
The prosecutor general is appointed by the president and approved by the Verkhovna Rada, where Zelenskyy’s Public Servant party holds a majority.
It was seen as an attempt by the government to control the two agencies, which were created in the wake of the 2013-14 pro-democracy Euromaidan protests. Many believe it’s a setback from the years of reforms following the removal of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.
The protesters held banners with slogans reading “Sham!” “Don’t make a step back, there’s an abyss there,” and “Corruption applauds” the new bill.
The rallies took place in Kyiv as well as in large cities such as the Black Sea port of Odesa and Lviv, known as Ukraine’s cultural capital.
NABU has been probing a string of senior officials and lawmakers, including those within Zelenskyy’s Public Servant party.
Oleksiy, who enlisted to join the army in 2022, wonders why he should keep fighting on the front lines of eastern Ukraine while officials engage in corruption.
“What’s the point if I go back home and my family is surrounded by corruption everywhere,” the 42-year-old construction manager told Al Jazeera.
“Judges, officials, even school teachers all say, ‘Give, give, give,’” he said, asking to withhold his last name and details of his military service, in accordance with the wartime protocol.
Oleksiy, who is on a break from his service to visit his two children and ailing mother, took part in the largest antigovernment rallies in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
Why Zelenskyy backed the bill?
The new law envisaged executive control over NABU and SAPO as the prosecutor general’s office could access their information, give them binding directives, transfer cases and close down investigations.
The bill “could finally destroy the independence of the anticorruption system in Ukraine”, NABU said.
Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said the new law “risks weakening Ukraine’s democratic foundations and its future integration with Europe”. She called for the repeal of the law.
Zelenskyy, a former comedian and political rookie who came to power in 2019 on an anticorruption ticket, defended the law, claiming that the NABU and SAPO have to “get rid of Russian influence”.
His allegation followed the arrest of two NABU staffers suspected of working for Russian intelligence, and charges against outspoken anticorruption campaigner Vitaly Shabunin.
Shabunin was accused of “evading military service”, but his supporters called the charges trumped-up, and almost 60 anticorruption and nongovernmental groups signed a joint appeal in his defence.
A Kyiv-based political analyst says there are two popular theories about why Zelenskyy initiated the bill.
“One is that NABU allegedly closed in on Zelenskyy’s inner circle,” Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta think tank, told Al Jazeera.
NABU accused Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, Zelenskyy’s closest ally and lifelong friend, of taking kickbacks worth $346,000 from a real estate developer in a deal that cost the government $24m.
Zelenskyy’s press office didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s phone calls and text messages.
“Or this is an attempt to control NABU’s actions in order not to overtly politicise them, not to provoke domestic political wars during the war with Russia,” Fesenko said.
“But I think it has to do with the activisation of the NABU on political issues that may have caused suspicion in Zelenskyy’s inner circle. That it wasn’t a fight against corruption but more of a political attack on Zelenskyy,” he said.
The protests, an anticorruption expert told Al Jazeera, have weakened Zelenskyy’s support within domestic political circles. “There was a belief in his high and stable rating,” Tetiana Shevchuk from the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a Kyiv-based group, said.
But “he no longer can demand anything from the parliament,” she said.
Zelenskyy is afraid of NABU as the only law enforcement agency that won’t open or close an investigation following a phone call from his administration, she said, referring to the centralisation of power under him.
“NABU is the only body that doesn’t do that,” Shevchuk said.
Fesenko from the Penta think tank says the politicians “underestimated” the bill’s “negative consequences”. They “didn’t think the public response would be that harsh”.
Zelenskyy has promised to submit the new bill – a move applauded by the country’s top anti-corruption investigator.
Semen Kryvonos, director of NABU, however, said that corrupt actors will step up a “dirty information campaign” against the anti-graft agencies.
Meanwhile, protest leaders say they would stop rallies only after the bill has been passed – tentatively, later this week.
Why has Ukraine struggled to control corruption? Has war-related corruption increased?
Since the 2014 pro-democracy revolution or Revolution of Dignity, attempts have been made to root out endemic corruption.
Many bureaucratic procedures have been simplified and consume less time, money and nerves.
But corruption remains pervasive in the halls of justice. Ukraine ranks 105 out of 180 in Transparency International’s corruption index.
A criminal investigator who spent months putting together a string of lawsuits against a fraudster who duped dozens of people, including several lawmakers, told Al Jazeera that a corrupt judge could annul his work and the fraudster may walk free.
“We can’t guarantee any judge’s honesty,” the investigator said on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, Europe’s worst armed conflict since World War II has bred new forms of corruption.
Some officers extort bribes for letting a serviceman take leave or go to a hospital, pilfer foreign aid such as canned foods, clothes or shoes that end up on store shelves instead of the front line.
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