On Friday, December 3, it was presented in Kyiv results of the Second National Ranking of Influence "Elite of Ukraine"-2021, conducted by the International Expert Club and rating agency ElitExpert. The rating was presented during a press conference in the UNIAN press center.
For several months, the expert group thoroughly studied the regional and national elite of Ukraine. The result of this was 25 global ratings — lists of the most influential people in each of the regions of the country and one national ranking consisting of the 100 most influential Ukrainians. More than 680 people were included in the lists.
According to Elena Ovchinnikova, head of the rating organizing committee and chairman of the board of the International Expert Club, the peculiarity of the 2021 rating is the clarity and rigor of the criteria by which applicants were evaluated - money, connections, activity and breadth of spheres of influence.
"If last year the experts evaluated the elite of our country according to the meritocratic principle, "with a plus sign", based on the positive qualities of the rating participants, this year the task was complicated, and the criteria were made tougher and more pragmatic," she noted.
Representatives of the executive, legislative, and judicial authorities, as well as large businessmen, were in the first positions in the ratings. At the same time, leaders of public opinion, creative workers, writers, musicians and scientists made up only a small percentage of participants in the ratings.
"We can say with confidence that money and positions still rule everything in the country," summarized Elena Ovchinnikova.
It should be noted that politicians and businessmen, as well as athletes, doctors, public and cultural figures, and spiritual leaders were included in the Top-100 of the national rating. The list was headed by the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.
The list also includes Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova, Minister of Health Viktor Lyashko, athletes Alexander Usyk and Andrey Shevchenko, major businessmen and philanthropists Aleksey Vadatursky, Viktor Pinchuk, Adnan Kivan, politicians - Andrey Yermak, Dmitry Razumkov, David Arahamiya, spiritual fathers of the nation - Metropolitan Epiphany , the head of the UHCC Svyatoslav Shevchuk, Metropolitan Onufriy, Chief Rabbi of Ukraine Moshe Reuven Azman and many others.
Independent expert analysis of the rating was given by Candidate of Political Science, Executive Director of the International Association of Small Communities, Alexey Buryachenko. According to him, this rating corresponds to Ukrainian realities.
"I was a bit skeptical about some positions, but overall this rating corresponds to modern realities and I was really happy about it. I want to emphasize that this rating is about influence, because it is no secret that the elite in Ukraine is still forming.
The first place in the rating is absolutely deserved by Volodymyr Zelensky, and not because he is the president, but because he has a lot of trust. It is interesting that Rynat Akhmetov is in second place, Andrey Yermak, the head of the President's Office, is in third place, and Igor Kolomoisky is in fourth place. Frankly, I don't like it, but these are the realities of Ukraine. Indeed, monopolists, big business and oligarchs have too much influence on the life of our state. We can't wear rose-colored glasses.
Overall, I highly appreciate the research done. The only thing is that in the coming years, the oligarchs would disappear from the lists of the most influential Ukrainians or at least move to the lower half of them - with minimal influence on the life of the country," the expert noted.
At the same time, public figure and head of the Committee of Economists of Ukraine, Andrey Novak, analyzed the results and expressed his thoughts about the influence of the rating participants on the country's economy.
"First of all, I want to note the complexity of the work - it is not easy to conduct such a study in the turbulent conditions of today's political and public life. It is very difficult to be objective, but the specialists working on the project succeeded. I very carefully read the results of the rating and I cannot say that the experts were wrong in some positions.
Secondly, in the current conditions, when the state is still in the conditions of transformation of the political and economic system, it is objectively impossible not to have the influence of large capital on the country. Moreover, oligarchs are not just big businessmen. These are large employers, taxpayers, owners of the most rated media resources, directly influencing entire sectors of the Ukrainian economy.
On the other hand, there are only four businessmen in the first twenty, the rest are representatives of various authorities. For a country undergoing transformation, it is not bad that representatives of the government took the main roles, because only the government, which has all the powers to do so, can effectively transform the country.
This rating of influence is very useful in the sense that it captures a cross-section of the social and political situation in a specific period of time. And even further, we can make analytical conclusions and recommendations for society: what exactly do we need to change, to raise the country's life from the bottom to higher positions," Andrey Novak concluded.
In her turn, Elena Ovchinnikova added that the experts of the International Expert Club and the rating agency ElitExpert study the regions very systematically: "We came to the conclusion that it is necessary to go from below, from the regions, in order to see and clearly represent what is happening on the ground. Our task is to raise regional strata and filter them through an expert sieve."
The complete list of the TOP-100 most influential people of the country and the ratings of all regional "tops" can be found at official website of the National rating platform.
