Canned Democracy

Halya Coynash

It was a bad week for democracy in Ukraine with formal democratic processes as close to the real thing as canned laughter on a TV show to genuine mirth.

The door to Europe, and specifically the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement was all but slammed shut by the rejection on Wednesday of former Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko’s cassation appeal.  Ukraine’s High Specialized Court upheld the outcome of a trial, which, as repeatedly pointed out by the EU and the democratic community, “did not respect international standards as regards fair, transparent and independent legal processes.”

Rule of law was just as removed from a courtroom in Zaporizhzhya, which on 2 April convicted two former sacristans of the Svyatopokrovsk Church and the brother of one of them to 15 and 14-year prison sentences over the bomb blast in the Church on 28 July 2010.  Judge Minasov ignored the fact that there was no evidence in the case aside from multiple “confessions” made without proper defence, and almost certainly under physical and psychological pressure.  The confirmation of this by two forensic psychologists was ignored, while a third report which interpreted smiles, gestures etc during the night interrogations as evidence of an “inclination to crime”  was quoted in detail in the judgement.  Minasov had rejected applications to have all forensic psychologists summoned to give evidence.  The list of irregularities in this case is as long as that in the trial of Lutsenko, and widely believed to be linked with the fact that President Yanukovych at the time demanded arrests within the week.

In both these cases, as well as the ongoing attempt to charge former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko with murder, few believe that the judges – or prosecutor – in the cases are acting autonomously.

The case against Tymoshenko encountered a bump on 2 April with a key witness Serhiy Taruta testifying that at the time of the killing of MP and businessman Shcherban, there was no conflict between him and Tymoshenko.

The case is so dodgy that inconvenient bleeps may not overly worry those pulling the strings.  Renat Kuzmin, Deputy Prosecutor General, whose trips abroad to justify the trials of opposition leaders are organized by such PR companies as Burson-Marsteller, will simply accuse all critics, including authoritative western observers of defamation if they suggest any political motivation.

There were plenty of other uncomfortable subjects during the week.  They included the President’s income declaration which, for the second year in a row, declared 15 and a half million UAH in “royalties.”  The latter must be understood very loosely since the President did not publish a single word in 2012.  In fact, had he published even one book the royalties received per word would quite possibly outdo many international bestseller writers. The amount would also instantly bankrupt most publishing houses, at least in Ukraine.  Not, however, the Donetsk publisher Novy Svit which in 2011 paid 16.4 million UAH for all President Yanukovych’s works, past, present and future.  It now transpires that this was only the first instalment of an ongoing fee.

The use of the rightwing VO Svoboda Party to present the Party of the Regions as antidote to creeping fascism and xenophobia had a novel application on Wednesday with a number of Svoboda activists detained by police in Kyiv and interrogated for many hours.  The events had seemed to promise high drama with a Party of the Regions MP Iryna Horina reporting on Tuesday that after the close of the Verkhovna Rada’s evening session she and other women MPs had been pelted with snowballs, ice and dirt by members of a political protest.  She later apparently claimed that there had been an attempt to kill her.

A criminal investigation is underway, and the police felt no need to follow the restrictions of the new Criminal Procedure Code on how many hours witnesses can be interrogated. From a PR point of view, a trial would be as much of a loser as trying now to bring charges of hooliganism against the young man who so famously felled the then presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych with an egg in 2004.

Thursday was a full-on day for Ukraine’s MPs though few of the events bore much relation to parliamentary democracy.  With the opposition continuing to block the Verkhovna Rada tribune, the Party of the Regions, Communists and others who vote with the government decided to attempt a kind of outreach parliament – in the premises of the parliamentary committees on Bankova St.   There was supposedly a vote on this with 244 in favour (226 is a simple majority), however leader of the Batkivshchyna faction in parliament, Arseny Yatsenyuk asserted that only 168 MPs were actually present.

It was one side’s word against the other’s since opposition MPs were not allowed into the building on Bankova St.

Interpretation of the Parliamentary Regulations also depends on which side you listen to, and how one is to understand “exceptional circumstances”.

This is of enormous importance since the pro-government MPs (in person, or in name and MP card alone) managed to vote on 22 laws, one of which changed the 2013 State Budget.  All of this without open discussion and without the presence of the opposition who numerically cannot override a government vote, but can at least point to dangers in the laws passed.

What is particularly disturbing is that analysts asked by the Deutsche Welle Ukrainian Service considered the votes to be illegitimate, but were not at all confident that they would be revoked. Former MP Yury Klyuchkovsky pointed out that there had been similar situations during the 2000s and the laws passed, however dubiously, remained in force.  The Constitutional Court then refused to consider submissions from MPs asking for the laws to be declared unconstitutional.  In this regard it’s worth noting that the Constitutional Court in March for the fourth time refused to consider the highly controversial language law signed into force by President Yanukovych in August 2012.  This law effectively ignores the constitutional norm stipulating that Ukrainian is the sole official language and significantly increases the role of the Russian language.

Another specific smell from Ukraine’s parliamentarianism comes from turncoats or, in the Ukrainian, “tushki” (carcases).  On Thursday Speaker Rybak announced that four Batkivshchyna faction MPs had changed sides.  Interpretation of motives and / or incentives will inevitably depend on whose version you trust, however the phenomenon cannot under any circumstances be considered healthy.

It is also difficult to see it as democratic. Even during the last elections where 50% of the candidates entered parliament on party lists and 50% stood for election on an individual basis, the vast majority of voters would have voted for the party.

If MPs can then choose where the grass for them is greener, the voters’ electoral choice is rendered meaningless, like so many other fundamental components of democracy increasingly treated as cosmetic props.

HAVING THE CAKE AND EATING IT TOO

Mykola Riabchuk

On the eve of President Vikto Yanukovych’s visit to Moscow on December 19, many Ukrainian experts were confident that the game was over and the beleaguered Ukrainian president would accept Putin’s invitation to the Customs Union as a sine qua non condition for the much-needed lowering of gas prices. The visit was postponed, however, because the agreement on energy cooperation had not been yet finalized http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2012/12/21/6980243/.

There are also some unofficial explanations of the canceled event, ranging from Putin’s whim to a miraculous call from Brussels and promise to soften the EU’s stance on the association agreement. The most feasible argument was discussed in detail in Ekonomichna pravda: some Ukrainian oligarchs have raised a new rescue idea, very similar to the old one realized by the unforgettable RosUkrEnergo http://www.epravda.com.ua/publications/2012/12/19/351560/.

Since his accession to power, Viktor Yanukovych has seemed to be musing over the classical question: how to have one’s cake and eat it too? In other words, how can one exploit the economy for the benefit of cronies and kinsmen, yet keep it alive? How to imitate a democracy and retain authoritarian power? How to befriend the West but avoid the burden of incorporating Western values and the rule of law in particular? How to gain concessions from Moscow without conceding one’s own and one’s clan’s sovereignty?

So far, the process of eating has gone much more smoothly than that of keeping the country afloat. Those perusing Ukrainska Pravda or other independent news sites regularly, would find, every day, a whole series of new facts about some government schemes: misuse of funds, tax evasion, dubious purchases at exorbitant prices from murky off-shore intermediaries, raider attacks, scandalous court rulings, and various examples of lawlessness that make up a fabric of Ukrainian social reality. Remarkably, all these facts that would cause scandals in a normal country and lead to dismissal of corrupt officials and a court investigation, evoke typically no official reaction in Ukraine. If something does not exist on TV (fully controlled by the government), it does not exist at all. Actually, only 20 per cent of the population obtains information from the Internet, whereas 80 per cent receives it primarily or exclusively from TV.

The government seems to believe in the virtual TV world it created for the gullible population. Nothing the government did within the past two months signals any desire to change course, tame the appetites of the “Family,” and carry out comprehensive reforms that may be the only way to save the country. Neither the clear popular vote against the incumbents, nor international condemnation of the rigged elections, nor the dire state of the Ukrainian economy and the even bleaker prospects for the future have compelled the president and his team to revise a single item of their impending disastrous policies.

First, the 2013 national budget was rubber-stamped by the parliament in the best traditions of the ruling Party of Regions: without any discussion but with numerous loopholes and tasty morsels for the “Family” insiders and associates.

Secondly, the new parliamentary majority was formed through the familiar pattern of bribery, blackmail, and intimidation of independent MPs. Many of the latter are connected to various businesses, either personally or via close relatives, and are therefore highly vulnerable to government influence. Opposition MPs are also subjected to pressure. So far, only two of them, from Yatseniuk’s party, have switched sides openly, but reports suggest that many more are being “persuaded” by various means to make the “right” choice http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2012/12/13/6979494/.

Thirdly, even though the new government has not yet been formed, the approved return of Mykola Azarov to the position of the prime minister does not bode any significant changes to the previous stagnant and corrupt policies. The election of 66-year Volodymyr Rybak, Yanukovych’s close friend from Donetsk, as chairman of the Ukrainian parliament, also confirms the desire to preserve the status quo and keep away any strong figures from top governmental positions that might provide them a good platform in the future to threaten Yanukovych http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2012/12/14/6979768/.

And fourthly, the outgoing parliament has rubber-stamped one more document that might pose grim consequences not only for Ukraine but also for Yanukovych himself. This was the law on national referendums that is widely believed to be a vehicle for his re-election for a second or even third term but might also become a tricky instrument in the hands of pro-Moscow forces to undermine the sovereignty of both Yanukovych and Ukraine in general.

The controversial law was passed at the first reading two years ago and seemed to have been forgotten until last November when the de-facto electoral defeat of the Party of Regions buried the “Family’s” hopes of mustering a qualified majority of two-thirds of MPs in the new parliament to amend the constitution at Yanukovych’s convenience, as has occurred in several post-Soviet states to satiate local dictators. Now, the anti-constitutional law on referendums means that the authorities can bypass the last remnants of constitutionalism in Ukraine by transforming the results of any plebiscite directly into law, without the need for parliamentary approval.

The referendum can be initiated either by Verkhovna Rada or the “people.” That latter make take such an initiative is very unlikely, however. Even if the “people” collect the required 3 million signatures to support a proposal, there is no independent judiciary in Ukraine to protect these signatures from being dismissed as “fake” by authorities, as happens on a daily basis in Putin’s Russia http://zakon1.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/1286-12.

It is a ticking bomb that is much more dangerous for Ukrainian democracy and sovereignty than any other of Yanukovych’s initiatives, including joining the ominous Customs Union. So far, all the Moscow-led “integration” projects have brought unimpressive results. All Russia’s neighbors are well aware what that kind of “integration” means. Few of them dare, however, to utter a definite “no” to those tricky initiatives (Georgia might be the very graphic exception). Therefore, they typically say “yes, but…” And that “but” stands for various forms of lip service and sabotage that undermines effectively “integration” projects without a direct and potentially dangerous confrontation with Moscow.

There is no reason to believe that Yanukovych’s “Family” is eager to give up Ukrainian customs to any “union” and deprive themselves of such a powerful source of income. The greed of these people might be the best if not the only guardian of Ukraine’s sovereignty–at least as long as their personal security in Ukraine is not under threat. But their incompetence and provincial naivety can make them (and all the nation, alas) an easy prey of the seasoned KGB hunters. Neither the 2010 “Kharkiv agreements” nor the recent scandal with LNG terminal (when the government signed an agreement with a bogus representative of a Spanish company) give much credibility to the alleged “professionalism” of the ruling team.

In October 2012, a leaked conversation of a Russian “political technologist” Semen Uralov, who worked in Odesa for the leader of the “Rodina” party Igor Markov, referred to the eventual victory of the unambiguously pro-Russian forces in Ukraine supposedly led by Viktor Medvedchuk. They implied also an honorable exile for Mr. Yanukovych in his opulent Mezhyhirya mansion, with a private zoo among other luxury possessions. The interlocutors joked about him being “locked in with his kangaroos”: “Ігор днями зустрічався з ВВМ [Віктором Володимирoвичeм Медведчуком]. Той підтвердив загальну концепцію. Не пізніше 15 року все зміниться, а цього пiдoра заженемо до його кенгуру у Межигір’я, а поки що – збираємо групу у Раді” (http://pr-portal.com.ua/peredovitsa/15895.php?sphrase_id=5446311).

It might be a good time to ponder whether a Putin-sponsored and Medvedchuk-led referendum, with a properly formulated question, would not be a much quicker way to push Ukraine into the Russian orbit than the awkward, barely functioning, and a priori unworkable Customs Union.

Playing the Identity Card

Mykola Riabchuk

If one observes a significant number of politicians talking about the “protection of Russian language” and “closer ties with Russia,” one can be sure that an election campaign in Ukraine is in full swing. The goal of the rhetoric is not only to mobilize the numerous Russophile / Sovietophile electorate in the densely populated industrialized South East. Another goal is to send a proper signal to Kremlin and hook its powerful political, economic and propagandistic support. In a country divided almost equally between pro-Western and pro-Russian parts, anything that can tip the balance is readily employed.

The identity issue is strongly infused in Ukrainian politics, and language is merely part of it. Its role is primarily symbolical since virtually everybody in Ukraine has some command of both Ukrainian and Russian, and definitely everybody understands both languages. Conversation where one person speaks Russian and the other one speaks Ukrainian is not unusual, both in private or public spheres such as TV, and parliament or government offices. It is not the issue of communication actually, that causes the rift but a matter of attitude: either respectful or scornful. For years, Ukrainian was the language of the despised majority – enslaved peasants of tsarist nobleman or kolkhoz bosses. The more advanced, urbanized, educated world spoke Russian. This left a heavy imprint of superiority on one part of the population and inferiority on the other.

Today, the empathy with Ukrainian entails a whole set of attitudes toward the colonial past and national liberation, historical heroes and villains, symbols and narratives. Within this mindset, Russia is the main “Other” from which Ukrainians should decouple and emancipate, whereas Europe is the main “Us,” the civilizational space where Ukrainians presumably “always belonged” and now should “return.” The antithetical attitude stands typically for colonialism denial and normalization of all its legacies. The past is considered as the history of Russian-Ukrainian brotherhood rather than domination, Russification is seen as a natural process rather than a result of specific policies, and the West is perceived as the main “Other,” whereas Russia and all the post-Soviet space is the main “Us.” It is not ethnicity, language, political preferences or regional belonging that divide Ukrainians but, rather, values and attitudes, even though a significant correlation between all these markers can be easily found.

This leads to another Ukrainian paradox. On the one hand, as opinion surveys reveal, the language issue per se stands very low on the list of people’s concerns, far behind unemployment, poverty, criminality, and corruption that top the list. Yet, at the same time, nothing divides Ukrainians so much and sparks such heated debates as identity-related issues. This tempts politicians to play the language card, which is an easy task since no efforts to solve the real bread-and-butter issues are required in this case. It is sufficient to advertise themselves as “our bad boys” with the only virtue of being “ours.”

Ukraine is heading towards parliamentary elections scheduled by the end of October, and the Ukrainian language has already fallen prey to a highly unscrupulous election campaign. Back in July, shortly after the UEFA cup competition ended in Kyiv, the Ukrainian parliament passed the bill “On the fundamentals of the national language policy.” The document stipulates that any of 18 “regional and minority” languages spoken by 10 (and more) percent of the people in a certain administrative region can be used in that region as the “official” language alongside Ukrainian.

In fact, the law cares about only one language, Russian, which, ironically, does not need any protection since it dominates nearly all the territory and virtually all the spheres of public life in Ukraine. By the same token, one may protect English in Ireland or Spanish in Peru. The main goal of the document is not to secure the right of the Russophone citizens to use Russian since such a right is enshrined in Ukraine’s Constitution and in the 1989 “Law on Languages.” The main goal is to secure the right of post-Soviet bureaucracy not to learn and to use Ukrainian under any circumstances. No provisions require service for Ukrainophones in Ukrainian, or the use of Russian alongside Ukrainian rather than instead of it. The law gives a free hand to state officials to choose the language of work at their convenience, regardless of preferences of individual citizens, hence there is little doubt what the traditionally Russian-speaking and Soviet-thinking bureaucracy will choose.

Even though the sponsors of the new law refer to the Western experience of bilingualism, neither Finland nor Switzerland is a relevant analogue here. Rather, it is Belarus where a similar Soviet-style law and hypocritical “laissez-faire” policy have already transformed Belarusian speakers into second-class citizens and brought the Belarusian language to the verge of extinction. A similar law in Ukraine evoked very critical comments from the expert community, NGOs, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, and the Venice Commission. Its letter in many cases contradicts the Ukrainian constitution, its spirit runs against the relative balance of intergroup interests, and the way it was rubber-stamped in the parliament is outrageous since deputies considered no conclusions of the respective parliamentary committees or amendments discussed, and many procedural technicalities were violated.

The further irony of the story is that the controversial law, as new surveys reveal, brought the dominant Party of Regions very little electoral gain. Analysts wonder whether this step was another miscalculation of the provincial elite, unable to grasp the complex reality and predict the inevitable backfire and various side effects – something that also happened in 2010 when the Black Sea Fleet base was conceded to Russia for virtually nothing, or last year when former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was imprisoned. Others argue, however, that this is a strategic move aimed at systemic emasculation of Ukrainian identity and, thereby, weakening the power base of the Orange opponents.

Both explanations may hold some truth but the main goal of the language law seems to be highly manipulative. It targets both supporters and opponents in the sense that it introduces false agenda into the election campaign. It shifts attention from the bread-and-butter issues on which the incumbents, with their disastrous social and economic policies, have little to say, toward issues concerning which any trickster and demagogue can pretend to be a “Great Leader.” Part of this plan is to make the opposition play this game: to defend language rather than the rule of law, and to fight remote Russia and its mythical “fifth column” rather than the real cheaters and robbers that run the country. Back in 2004, the Ukrainian people were victorious in a battle against the corrupt regime precisely because they rejected this false agenda and fought for fair elections and human dignity, for justice and decency, rather than language and other identity issues, however important they might be eventually. It remains to be seen whether the government’s manipulative strategies will be more successful this time.

 

LANGUAGE LAW A PLOY TO DISTRACT VOTERS

David Marples

On July 3, the Ukrainian Parliament passed the second draft of a language law that would grant official status to minority languages in areas in which they are spoken by at least 10% of the population. Its acceptance sparked furious protests outside Parliament, with riot police using batons and tear gas against demonstrators.

Some analysts maintain that the law would undermine the status of Ukrainian, which has been the only official state language since the country gained independence in 1991. Others anticipate a deepening of a regional divide between the Ukrainian-speaking Western regions, and the mainly Russophone areas of the south and east.

Yet as usual with events involving the ruling Regions Party and its president Viktor Yanukovych, there is more to this move than is at first evident.

The circumstances of the bill’s passing were calculated to inflame. It was introduced without forewarning, when many deputies and Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn were absent. It received votes from 248 deputies, well over the required minimum of 226. The Regions deputies were supported by the Communist Party and People’s Party. Speaker Lytvyn subsequently offered his resignation, but it was rejected by the assembly the following day. Seven deputies announced they were starting a hunger strike in protest. There were angry demonstrations in Kyiv and in the western Ukrainian city of L’viv, the heartland of Ukrainian speakers. Protests are also planned by the Ukrainian community abroad in centers like Toronto.

In theory the bill—it still requires the signatures of the President and Speaker before it becomes law—would mean that Russian would take on official status in 13 of Ukraine’s 27 designated regions, i.e. 11 “oblasts” (provinces) and the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol. In the far western area of Transcarpathia, Hungarian would gain official status. In Chernivtsi and southwestern Odesa, the same would apply to Romanian and Bulgarian. On the Crimean peninsula, the Tatar language would also gain such status. Altogether, Ukraine would have 18 “official languages”!

There is little logic to its sudden passing other than perhaps to enhance the electoral standing of the Regions Party in Russian-speaking regions prior to the parliamentary elections, anticipated in October. Language issues are hardly a priority in a state riddled with corruption and human rights issues, and suffering a sharp economic downturn. And although tempers are frayed, the number of protesters is small. A mere 1,000 turned out in central Kyiv on July 4, for example, barely enough to cause a flutter on the bustling Khreschatyk.

Also, should the law attain official status its implementation would be a bureaucratic and financial nightmare. Indeed, a representative of the Finance Ministry, Valentyna Brusylo, commented, perhaps indiscreetly, that it would likely cost some $1.5-$2 billion to introduce. Such expenses in an election year would be an issue of much greater contention than the language law itself. The Ukrainian government is in financial trouble: it recently agreed terms for a $3 billion loan from China’s Eximbank, payment for which will be partly in exports of grain up to 2.5 million tons per year.

Third, why do Regions deputies need to introduce a law formalizing the status of Russian, which already enjoys a privileged position? No doubt it will impress Russian president Vladimir Putin who visits Ukraine on July 12. But the question has been dragged up, by Yanukovych and earlier presidents, at every election and then ignored once a new president entered office.

The answer to all these questions appears to be that it is a calculated ploy to inflame and divide residents of Ukraine, a diversion from other issues that should be considered more urgent. The electorate has been sidetracked for the past month by Euro-2012, a successful but costly soccer competition that was well organized and won convincingly by the Spanish. The language law is the new diversion.

After its passing, as opposition deputies gathered in the streets to protest, the remaining 73 deputies passed a total of 20 new laws in a single day. These included new subsidies for the Donbas coal mines, which are at the center of Regions’ power base, a new rail connection to Kyiv international airport, and more funding for the Ministry of Justice and the Office of the State Prosecutor. The costs of the new laws amount to billions.

Because so few deputies were present, others simply voted in their place, pressing the “yes” button in the absentees’ seats in order to secure a majority for each new law. The strategy could be seen as cynical. But Regions deputies habitually pay lip service to the democratic process while finding ways to circumvent it.

The uproar over the language bill may be justified. But it is also a diversion, carefully calculated so that deputies are preoccupied and the rules of Parliament can be circumvented. In the meantime the ruling elite of Ukraine fritter away state funds without a care for the long-term consequences.

The language law is simply impractical, but it is not the main issue. Language does not divide the residents of Ukraine. The real problem is the ruling Regions Party, which treats the country as a personal fiefdom to be robbed at will and finds ingenious ways to ensure that it can continue to do so.

This article first appeared in the Edmonton Journal, 7 July 2012. [http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/ideas/story.html?id=0a732fad-db3f-4777-b245-c73bcf13873f&p=2]

Democracy on the Run

David Marples

Belarusians vote Sunday in the presidential elections, the first since 2006. In Kyiv, Ukraine, anyone with access to the Internet could watch the mass brawl in the Parliament on Thursday. Meanwhile, in Moscow, thousands of extremists rioted and attacked anyone who appeared to have a darker complexion after the death of a soccer fan in ethnic clashes in the city.

The first decade of the 21st century is not ending well in the Slavic heartland of the former Soviet Union.

The Belarusian election is a ritual. The winner is already known because Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the first and only president of Belarus, is assured of victory in the first round over nine opponents. Every facet of the election has been under government control, and the nine alternative candidates are dismissed as “enemies of the people.” They were introduced on national television as “nine identical candidates.”

However, Lukashenka’s situation was uncertain for several weeks because of a well-publicized spat with Russia. On Dec. 9, this ended during his visit to Moscow when President Dmitry Medvedev, who had accused Lukashenka of crossing all boundaries of human decency during the recent trading of barbs, decided after all that he was the best candidate from Russia’s perspective.

In return, Lukashenka has agreed to join a common economic space with Russia and Kazakhstan, and to accept the Russian ruble as the sole currency, effective Jan. 1, 2012. He is also under severe pressure to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia (shunned by most of the world), and heavily reliant on Russia and the IMF for future loans. Belarus, however, is back into the Russian fold, though the European Union had not rejected him.

The EU’s Eastern Partnership badly needs Belarus because few of its members are very reliable. One is Ukraine, where the democratic structure is crumbling rapidly. President Viktor Yanukovych and his Regions Party are constructing a power base while trying to ensure the complete demise of the opposition.

Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of the Batkivshchyna faction in the parliament, has been accused of illegal use of funds during her term as prime minister from 2007-10. In protest, members of her faction surrounded the rostrum to block procedure. About 40 members of the Regions faction removed them by force, using fists and, in one case, a chair. Three Batkivshchyna deputies required treatment in hospital. Tymoshenko, meanwhile, has been told not to leave the country.

The episode is the latest in a series of actions conducted by the Regions Party. Ukraine today is under the sway of a group of politicians from the Donbass who are turning the country into a fiefdom. Only the wildest optimist could anticipate that Yanukovych will be voted out of office in 2015. Though he is four years older than Lukashenka, he has initiated moves to consolidate a personal presidency that if unchecked could last for a decade or more.

Russia, the neighbour of both Ukraine and Belarus, abandoned democracy several years ago as a recipe for chaos. In a sense, it was. The amassing of wealth by several oligarchs with their own personal kingdoms, bodyguards and control over Russia’s natural resources repelled many Russians. Today they still have corruption, but they also have order and control under the dual regime of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Two weeks ago, through what can charitably be described as quiet pressure, FIFA, the body that controls world soccer, awarded Russia the 2018 World Cup. It beat bids from England and Spain-Portugal, among others. It is a fitting stage for a country in which extreme racists are allowed to roam the streets of the capital attacking innocent victims. The fact that Russia has no soccer stadiums suitable for games, or that fans may have to cross seven time zones for individual matches, evidently made no impression on the FIFA selection committee.

In 2012, Russia will have another presidential election. Who will run? It doesn’t really matter. Perhaps Putin will be president, in which case he will no doubt appoint Medvedev prime minister. Or we will have more of the same. The only prospect of any excitement would be if a rift developed between the two politicians. But that is not likely. They have too much to lose.

This week as well, former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man and owner of the Yukos oil company, went on trial again for the embezzlement of millions of rubles. Putin stated that “a thief must sit in jail” and favourably compared the victim’s likely sentence of 17 years (he has served seven) to that of Bernard Madoff in the United States. Khodorkovsky and partner Platon Lebedev are accused of theft of oil from their own company.

Khodorkovsky is an unlikely symbol of the demise of democracy in Russia, but he is in jail less for illegally amassed wealth than because he presented a political challenge to Putin. There is no fighting in Russia’s parliament because it is firmly subdued, as is the assembly in Belarus. But Ukraine is also moving toward a presidential autocracy, with a power vertical (a highly centralized political system) and an entrenched ruling elite.

Imagine the heroes of Goodfellas in power and one has a fairly accurate picture of the mentality of these ruling elites: power-hungry, selfish, corrupt, increasingly wealthy and utterly ruthless.

In this respect, they deserve the title “post-Soviet elite.” Stalin would have been proud of his offspring.

This article was published in the EDMONTON JOURNAL on 18 December 2010.
Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Democracy/3998324/story.html#ixzz18TwVeiCu

Flawed by Design: the Local Elections in Ukraine

By Mykola Riabchuk

On the eve of Ukrainian local elections scheduled for October 31 relatively few people and virtually no experts believed they would be free and fair – and with good reason. The first shot at the optimists’ hopes was fired shortly after the presidential elections, as the new parliamentary majority and new government were created in a patently unconstitutional way under the leadership of President Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions. One of their first decisions, rubber-stamped by the now-obedient parliament without any discussion, was cancellation of local elections scheduled by the Ukrainian Constitution to be held in May and their eventual (and, again, absolutely illegal) rescheduling in October.

The reason behind this delay was patently obvious. The victorious team was not ready yet to begin another triumphant campaign after taking office in March. They needed some time to fix the playing field in the most beneficial way for themselves. Step by step, they changed radically the electoral law, stacked both central and local electoral commissions with their loyalists, subordinated completely the administrative courts that are in charge, inter alia, of solving electoral disputes, replaced all the governors and local presidential representatives that supervise the process, placed unscrupulous allies in charge of all the law-enforcement agencies, and hired even more unprincipled hacks to run national TV and radio.

Yet, even more importantly, they sent clear symbolic signals to both their supporters and opponents, but primarily to those who stood on the sidelines, reluctant and hesitant. The signals left little doubt about who was coming back to power and what kind of policies would be implemented. The police, for the first time since the Orange revolution, encroached upon people’s constitutional right for peaceful protests, restraining arbitrarily, on many occasions, their freedom of assembly. The secret police harassed demonstratively journalists, scholars, and NGO activists. Tax authorities intimidated disobedient businessmen, including media-owners, suggesting that there would be problems for those who would not tow the line. And prosecutors, in the best traditions of selective application of law, have arrested a number of opposition figures on corruption charges, all of which, so far, have been broadly trumpeted but poorly substantiated.

In brief, the new authorities have effectively redeployed all the mechanisms of Kuchma’s notorious “blackmail state” that had been abandoned but never disbanded after the revolution by President Yushchenko and his team. Now, the entire nation is paying the price for the inability of the Orange leaders to clean house, eradicate corruption, and introduce the rule of law.

As the elections neared and all the power was being concentrated increasingly in the hands of Yanukovych and his lieutenants, the dirty electoral tricks from the Kuchma era resurfaced conspicuously. Here and there, reports surfaced about the most inconvenient opposition candidates who were either barred from running, or bribed or intimidated to withdraw their candidacy, or stand aside. The most incompliant were arrested on the traditional “corruption” charges that could not necessarily be proved but would certainly eliminate the rival from the impending elections.

Tymoshenko and her “Batkivshchyna” party were considered the main rivals of the incumbent authorities, so the dirtiest tricks were directed primarily against them. The most outrageous was probably the creation of bogus parties under the same name that were slavishly registered by the election commissions, while the authentic “Batkivshchyna” documents were rejected. As a result, Tymoshenko’s party was effectively excluded from the elections in at least three crucial regions – Lviv, Kyiv, and Ternopil.

The far-right “Svoboda” appeared to be the main beneficiary of this game. They won a plurality of 30-35% in the three oblasts of Halychyna and mad significant advances in the Kyiv oblast, accumulating a respectable 5% on the national scale that, if repeated eventually in the 2012 parliamentary elections, would qualify them for seats in the Rada. For the Party of Regions it was actually a win-win situation. Having no chance to beat Tymoshenko in her western strongholds, they used “Svoboda” to undermine her strength and, at the same time, to discredit the opposition – both domestically and internationally – as dangerous radicals, nationalists, even crypto-fascists. At the same time, they understand well that “Svoboda,” unlike “Batkivshchyna,” has no chance of expanding significantly beyond Western Ukraine to challenge the Party of Regions in its traditional strongholds. Therefore, all the national TV channels (otherwise effectively censored by the authorities) hosted eagerly the “Svoboda” leaders in their political talk shows while Tymoshenko and her close associates were effectively blacklisted from the same “pluralistic” programs.

The day of the elections did not bring much violence but it brought considerable chaos. Long lines queued outside the polling stations and many voters gave up the wait, rendering the turnout unusually low for Ukraine, while many more remained at home because the bulletins disseminated by the authorities seemed to indicate there was no real choice of candidates. An unusually high number of voters (7%) voted against all candidates – probably for the same reason. In at least two places, Yasynovata (Donetsk oblast) and Kamyanets-Podilsky, where popular local leaders supported by opposition were barred from standing, the “against all” vote reached 30%. The disorder was exacerbated at various polling stations as uncounted bulletins were found and observers expelled; some members of the commissions left, or were locked out, or reportedly bribed or forced to sign fixed protocols, and more.

The final results had not been announced a week later, when this article went to press. Local results were announced wholesale by the district commissions rather than at each polling station as required by law. In all the districts where the exit polls showed the Party of Regions candidates lagging closely behind their rivals (for example, in Odesa, Luhansk, and Kharkiv), the official results reversed those standings.

Impartial observers are unanimous: “Ukraine’s Oct. 31 local elections did not meet standards for openness and fairness set by the presidential elections earlier this year.” Or, as the Kyiv Post editor put it more straightforwardly: “Yanukovych, still hobbled by his complicity in fraudulent elections during the era of ex-President Leonid Kuchma, had a chance to show he is a democratic leader. Instead, the president showed he’s the same old conniver unworthy of leading a great nation of 46 million people.” Alas, that’s true.

But what does this unpleasant result mean for the country?

First, the Party of Regions has advanced further in monopolizing all branches of power and consolidating its authoritarian rule. In terms of the popular vote it received a mere plurality of around 36% – much less than its candidate Viktor Yanukovych attained nine months ago in the second round of the presidential elections (49%), but roughly the same proportion he got in the first round. Yet, in practical terms, the electoral system adjusted by the Party of Regions to their particular needs, gives them multiple advantages. Only half of the local deputies are elected from the party lists. The first-past-the-post system apparently enhances the authority of Yanukovych’s party as it is the biggest one and endows it with a vested interest in splitting and cloning the opposition parties as much as possible, as well as in rigging election results because even minor manipulations of such a system can be crucial.

The remaining half of the elected local deputies are the so-called “independents,” even though they are nominated by different parties. Most of them are local officials or businessmen highly vulnerable to official blackmail, bribery, and intimidation. The majority, as we know from the Kuchma era, end up in the government camp – the only place where they can secure their business.

So, the Party of Regions has a good chance to create a majority not only in its traditional strongholds in the south east but also in most oblasts and towns of central Ukraine, governed until recently by “Batkivshchyna” and other “Orangists.” In some cases, the Communists who gained their usual 5%, will be employed as allies, in other cases Tigipko’s “Strong Ukraine” (4%) or Yatseniuk’s “Front of Changes” (7%) might be lured into a coalition. In any case, the Party of Regions will be able to increase its grip over the country, which will likely result in further crackdowns on the independent mass media, NGOs, political opposition, and disloyal (or not loyal enough) businesses.

Yet, this outcome may not make Yanukovych’s life easier. As Yulia Mostova remarked poignantly in a recent issue of Dzerkalo tyzhnia, by eliminating the opposition he becomes his own worst enemy (http://www.dt.ua/1000/1550/70762/). He cannot satisfy the Westerners who expect from him the promised reforms, not just moribund authoritarian “stability.” Nor can he satisfy the Kremlin, which requires more “integration” moves from him and demands that more and more national assets be given up. Something should be certainly done for the radical reform of the country but the incumbent president’s ability to achieve anything other than augmenting rampant corruption looks even less feasible than before the elections.

Circus at the Rada

Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Bureau Editor
The Ukrainian Weekly

The latest opposition protest at the Verkhovna Rada, on September 7, resembled a three-ring circus that revealed the increasing radicalization and tension in Ukrainian politics, which appears to be poised for a nasty eruption as predicted by numerous observers.

About 10,000 demonstrators (I estimate about 2,500 pro-government and 7,500 opposition) arrived from throughout Ukraine, despite extensive efforts by the police to prevent the arrival of demonstrators. Any bus companies found to be transporting opposition protestors automatically have their transportation license confiscated. All the dozen or so protestors I spoke with today either arrived by train or their own cars. They all said bus companies declined to transport them.

Only three parties were represented at the protest: Batkivschyna (led by Yulia Tymoshenko), the Svoboda nationalists (led by Oleh Tiahnybok) and the People’s Rukh of Ukraine (Narodnyi Rukh) led by Borys Tarasyuk. Viktor Yushchenko has vanished from the Ukrainian political scene and Our Ukraine is extinct, as well as the orange color, which Ukrainians now associate with the Donetsk Shakhtar soccer team more than anything else.

Previous protests were marred by Svoboda nationalists shouting down more moderate voices, who yelled “Tiah-ny-bok!” even as prominent leaders such as Tymoshenko spoke. It was no different this time around. The protest meeting was marred by hundreds of radicalized Svoboda youths in their 20s attempting to shout down most other speakers, including Borys Tarasyuk and former police chief Yurii Lutsenko.

Lutsenko is not a popular figure in Ukrainian politics, having been among those who most betrayed the Orange ideals. Yet the fact he was shouted down demonstrates the aggressiveness of Svoboda supporters, who didn’t seem to be interested in joining the unification of opposition forces, but causing enmity.

When demonstrators attempted to take away their megaphones, in order to stop them from southing down other speakers, the Svoboda boys shoved and even punched back, continuing to repeat over and over, “Tiah-ny-bok!” Soon enough, their zombie-like fanaticism for Tiahnybok led other demonstrators to accuse them of either being at the protest for money, as paid provocateurs, or intentionally causing division among the opposition forces at the behest of the Party of Regions.

Indeed many Ukrainian patriots suspect that the Svoboda party engages in ethnically and politically motivated provocations and aggressive behavior in order to benefit the Party of Regions. Today’s behavior of the young male supporters, many in their 20s, only contributed to that view.

After the rally, Tiahnybok insisted to those gathered around him (including me) that he didn’t spur his supporters into shouting his name or disrupting the rally. He said they were upset because the demonstration’s organizers, the Committee to Defend Ukraine, denied him an opportunity to speak. However another party leader, Iryna Farion, was allowed to address the crowd, so the behavior of the Svoboda crowd seemed unreasonable.

Additionally, the Svoboda nationalists appeared as if they came to the rally prepared to attack Tymoshenko (and anyone besides their own leaders, for that matter), having arrived with printed placards with slogans that taunted her, such as “Who made (natural) gas serfs out of Ukrainians?”

In her speech, Tymoshenko hammered on the government’s unpopular decisions to increase natural gas prices, increase utility bills by 30 percent, increase the pension age, and increase the Kyiv subway fare (from 22 cents to 25 cents). She also referred to the government as Ukrainophobes, citing its Russification policies.

Farion is among the most radical politicians in Ukraine, so it can as no surprise that she called for “Ukraine for Ukrainians” and ridding the nation of the “animals in government.” She used very loaded language, calling upon the protesters “to shoot them up with their voting ballots” at the October 31 elections and speaking of a “final catharsis” that will soon arrive.

Similar language was used by the Committee to Defend Ukraine chairman Dmytro Pavlychko, who said openly that Ukraine “is headed for an explosion.” That does seem to be the direction of events as such protests draw more supporters. And the Yanukovych administration does seem to be provoking the opposition into a violent confrontation, with its radically pro-Russian cultural policies that denigrate the dignity of ethnically conscious Ukrainians.

It’s apparent the government is even laying the groundwork for such a violent confrontation, which it can use as a pretext to impose a full-scale authoritarianism as evidenced in Belarus and even some form of martial law. If the opposition enters into an “explosion,” as Mr. Pavlychko suggested, then it better plan the right strategy to ensure that it emerges as the winner, not the defeated.

The techniques used by the government to deal with the opposition are getting fiercer. While earlier allowing protestors to line up along Hrushevskoho Street on the side opposite of the parliament building, this time they weren’t allowed to walk along the street at all. Once again, the government surrounded the parliament building with thousands of Party of Regions supporters, who were comfortably shielded by metal barricades and hundreds of police. Their fanaticism and bizarre behavior is accelerating as fast as the radicalization of the opposition, which was forced to hold its meeting at the Mariyinskiy Palace, adjacent to the parliament building.

It came as no surprise to see more than a thousand Russian Orthodox radicals marching in columns around the parliament building, holding icons and wooden crosses and singing Church Slavonic hymns. This has been a common sight at the barricades that have surrounded the parliament at protests since Yanukovych came to power.

I should note that never was religion integrated into political activity to such an extent as the Yanukovych administration is currently exploiting it. The Orange forces never invoked religion during their reign in the government or their role in the opposition. This leads to the conclusion that the Party of Regions is truly fearful of the opposition and has resorted to extreme measures to extend their grip on power, such as manipulating the Orthodox devoted into defending their authoritarian rule.

It shocked me to see hundreds of Party of Regions supporters participating in a Orthodox moleben ceremony led by Orthodox priests within their barricaded fortress, directly in front of the parliament building just as the opposition was meeting. I had never seen such a direct infusion of religion in politics, which has very dangerous potential because it introduces a new irrational element to the conflict. Politics is supposed to offer rational, compromised solutions to disputes. Religion is irrational and therefore can lead people to do highly irrational things.

The scene inside the parliament was just as bizarre as abut a dozen deputies of the Tymoshenko Bloc led a blockade of the podium. Yet the pro-Russian coalition was voting on and approving legislation during this “blockade,” rendering it wholly ineffective and largely a ploy for television cameras.

The most hopeful sign is that the opposition forces are swelling and gaining support among the population. Today’s anti-government protest was the largest since the Yanukovych administration took power.

Yet it was very disheartening to see the opposition forces so divided. (What else is new?) It seems as though Ukrainians are incapable of uniting, no matter how compelling the conditions might be. While I once reserved sympathy and admiration for the Svoboda nationalists and their fierce devotion to the Ukrainian cause, I lost much sympathy and respect for them after today’s protest. They demonstrated such unconstructive narrow-mindedness and hostility towards the other opposition parties that I’m starting to believe they’re more of a hindrance than a benefit to the Ukrainian cause. Their radical positions on many issues aren’t capable of unifying the country, and play into the hands of the Party of Regions in reinforcing the Soviet stereotype of western Ukrainians as “fascist,” hostile, intolerant and dangerous.

The consensus is that Yanukovych and the Party of Regions are seeking the same authority in Ukraine that Putin enjoys in Russia and Lukashenko in Belarus. They will tighten the screws of their authoritarian rule following the October 31 elections, which will no doubt be falsified and rigged in many cities. The amended election law approved on August 30 only enhances the government’s ability to falsify the vote, as detailed in The Ukrainian Weekly last week.

The latest episode in the Yanukovych nightmare is the September 7 announcement by Yevhen Bystrytskyi, the executive director of the Renaissance Foundation in Ukraine, that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is reviewing its work in Kyiv. While George Soros is no angel and no one to be admired, the Renaissance Foundation offers much support to many of Ukraine’s democracy-building institutions. As we recall, Vladimir Putin supported legislation in the Russian Duma in 2006 limiting the ability of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to operate in Russia. No doubt, Yanukovych would also like to restrict the presence western NGOs which offer financial support to organizations committed to democracy-building and Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration. The Renaissance projects targeted by the SBU so far are not political, yet it’s clearly the strategy of the current government to slowly and gradually eliminate the Western presence. If the Renaissance Fund is strangled, so go many Ukrainian NGOs.

On the Importance of Being Candid

Mykola Riabchuk

Dmytro Potekhin, an activist of the youth movement that played an important role during the Orange Revolution, has recently circulated a number of questions that may look rhetorical at first glance but, like the childish questions of Voltaire’s Candide, they deserve serious consideration.

“Isn’t it strange”, he wrote, “that in a country where
1) the government is not legitimate since it was formed by unconstitutional majority;
2) the parliament is not legitimate since the majority did not result from a revote nor was it dissolved and reelected;
3) the court system is not legitimate since it operates under the new ‘law’ passed by the ‘parliament’;
4) the ‘president’ is not legitimate since he has done nothing either with the ‘parliament’ or with the ‘government’ to reestablish constitutional rule,
- the key human rights activists are complaining that the ‘minister’ of interior is not gathering the public council to hear about human rights abuses, while saying nothing about the unconstitutional nature of the whole situation;
- the key freedom movement is ‘against censorship’, while its activists – journalists keep calling all these people who took over the institutions ‘president’, ‘prime minister’, ‘minister’ projecting their legitimacy;
- the bloggers wonder why the security service is removing posts from their blogs, but still call it Security Service of Ukraine, not Security Service of Usurpers;
- the businesses are complaining that the taxes are too high, while they are taken by a bunch of organized people who in the early 90s were called racketeers;
- the opposition is going to take part in the elections under the ‘law’ passed by a bunch of MPs still calling themselves deputies, none of whom get out of this fake Verhovna Rada […]
People, what are we talking about?!”*

To put it simply, why has a de-facto parliamentary coup d’etat and eventual usurpation of power by a minority clique been tacitly accepted by both the political opposition and society at large?

There are many answers that largely explain, albeit not justify, the odd situation.

First, the dubious takeover of power was approved by the Constitutional Court – even though the same Court a year and a half ago passed the opposite decision on a similar issue. Actually, the credibility of the Court was undermined long ago, in 2003, when the constitutional pundits recognized that Leonid Kuchma could run for presidency for the third time because his first term did not count – he had served it arguably under the old constitution. The Orange leaders put much more efforts into subduing the Court than making it really efficient and independent. Society never voiced strong concerns about this – and now we all are duly punished for our passivity and opportunism.

Secondly, the coup d’etat was accepted by Western governments with a benign neglect that placed the Ukrainian opposition in an odd situation: they had to deny the legitimacy of the government whose validity, in fact, was recognized (or at least not questioned) internationally.

And thirdly, the misrule of the Orange leaders has discredited not only them – as today’s opposition, but democracy in general. This boosted the attractiveness of the authoritarian alternative within one part of the society, and frustrated, demoralized, and alienated the other part, hindering its ability to resist. In such a situation, a minority party with sufficient resources and determination can easily capture the state – as happened in Italy or Germany long ago, and more recently in Russia.

So, I would say that the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government is recognized by default – simply because there is no other government (since Tymoshenko unexpectedly easily stepped down in March, passing authority to the usurpers), nor is there any viable alternative (since the opposition is still in disarray, and society either frustrated with everything or still trustful in the new duce).

In this regard, David Marples is probably right when questioning Alexander Motyl’s prediction of the imminent collapse of the Yanukovych presidency in Ukraine – probably by the year 2012 (Edmonton Journal, Aug. 9, 2010). It looks really overoptimistic – but not because of “perceptible economic recovery and increasing popularity of the Yanukovych leadership”, as Dr. Marples suggests. Neither “recovery” nor “popularity” are actually viable. The former is mostly connected to the post-crisis recovery of the entire world economy and to a very low base for comparison. The latter is related to the ‘honeymoon’ period of Yanukovych’s presidency and still high expectations of his electorate (actually, Yushchenko’s popularity at the time was even higher but has since fallen dramatically). So far, there are no economic reforms in sight to secure sustainable growth. And austerity measures designed to support this growth do not target officials or friendly oligarchs, so would hardly sustain the president’s popularity in the near future.

Motyl might be wrong for another reason. He expects that the 2012 parliamentary and 2015 presidential elections will be free and fair – as they used to be within the past five years. Not necessarily. Given the pace and direction of political and legal “reforms” introduced by the new regime, we may have Russia-style ‘managed democracy’ in Ukraine very soon. Actually, the local elections this Fall will provide a good litmus test for Ukraine’s democratic procedures and institutions. So far, the changes of the electoral law rubber-stamped by the parliament to advantage the ruling party a few months before the elections do not evoke much optimism. They introduced a number of retroactive requirements that should have been abolished by any impartial court if it happened to exist in Ukraine. And they confirmed once again the strong intention of the government to play with rules rather than play by rules.

So now might be a proper time to come back to the candid questions raised by Dmytro Potekhin and to remind the king and his court that they are naked. They got some carte-blanche, however dubious, to introduce law and order and much needed reforms. But instead, they bring even more lawlessness and disorder, and introduced very peculiar “reforms” that satisfy mostly their oligarchic friends and Moscow patrons. For the beginning, I suggest to mention, wherever possible, their titles and positions within the quotation marks or with the words “so called”.

Potekhin is right – we do not have a legitimate government, legitimate parliament, legitimate Court. We have people who call themselves “ministers”, “deputies”, and “judges”. Let them do it. But we should not accept their claims at face value.

*Potekhin’s text has been modified slightly for grammatical reasons. DRM

Blockading the Verkhovna Rada

Kateryna Malyhina

For nearly a month Ukraine’s legislature has been paralyzed. The Party of Regions (PR) is blocking the work of the Parliament. The cause is the secret letter to NATO about Ukraine’s accession to the Membership Action Plan that was signed by the Head of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine A. Yatsenyuk. The PR claims that such an action was not sanctioned by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and therefore lacks the approval of the Ukrainian people. As a result Yatsenyuk had no right to put his signature to such an important document. Both de facto and de jure, they are right. But what in reality stands behind such an action?

At a first glance, the Party of Regions has dual benefits. On the one hand, it has raised its credibility in the eyes of people, showing that it acts as a true opposition, which seeks to ensure that those who are in power do not violate laws. On the other hand, referring to the “desire of the Ukrainian nation” and demanding a referendum on Ukraine’s accession to NATO, the PR does not explicitly oppose NATO, but at the same time strengthens the position among its traditional voters, who had already begun to doubt the ability of the PR, to defend their interests.

However, the list of the benefits for the PR in this situation does not end here. Having failed to gain power, the PR needs to fulfill its most important current task: that is, to prevent the normal functioning of Tymoshenko’s government, but not to advocate expressly for her resignation. There are two reasons why the PR will not take this latter step. First, by distributing social benefits, she is at the peak of popularity now and direct actions will only enhance her popularity. Second, it will benefit Yanukovych to let Tymoshenko “work” now, make mistakes, and thus show that her government is unable to lead Ukraine into a “bright future.”

By blocking parliament, the PR seized the opportunity to impede Tymoshenko’s plans, while acting within the law. Tymoshenko’s government urgently needs money in order to continue its mega-project named “compensation of lost deposits in the USSR Savings Bank.” The quickest and easiest way to obtain money is through re-privatization of companies, which has already been proven to work. Why put all one’s efforts in developing the economy, when one can quickly “redistribute” everything, referring to the unfair privatization in the 90s. That is why the Prime Minister has already made attempts to dismiss the Head of the State Property Fund Valentyna Semenyuk. Tymoshenko needs her own man for such a responsible position (incidentally, Andrei Portnov from BYUT was thought to be the replacement for Semenyuk). But this turned out to be far from easy. According to Article 85 §12 of the amended Constitution, the right to appoint and dismiss the Head of the State Property Fund has been allocated to the Verkhovna Rada. And the legislature is not functioning at this time.

But as the Ukrainian saying goes, “too much of something can be harmful.” The PR cannot block the parliament indefinitely. It is also highly unlikely that the PR will succeed in forcing through its own terms–to vote on the commencement to the Membership Action Plan only after a referendum–because it cannot at present gain a majority in parliament. To further block the work of the Verkhovna Rada will soon no longer be profitable. First, while the “30 days” before the President has the duty to dissolve the parliament (according to the Art. 90 §3 of Ukraine’s Constitution) are already counting down, Yatsenyuk has already stated that he will not let the Verkhovna Rada work for half a day and be blocked again afterwards. Therefore the only possibility to start the countdown from day one is when the parliament will be fully “unblocked.” Second, if the PR continues blocking the parliament, time will start to work against it in a while. The PR will be blamed for a new political crisis. Moreover, Tymoshenko will declare once again that she has been prevented from working, which will only improve her image.

There is one more risk when prolonging the conflict. The President may start exercising legislative functions directly from his office. Indeed, Article 93 of the Constitution states that the President of Ukraine has the right of legislative initiative; and according to Article 106 the president then issues decrees and orders, which are mandatory for execution, and Article 113 indicates that the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is still accountable to the President of Ukraine. Thus, there is a risk of introducing the “direct” presidential rule: Yushchenko would issue the decrees that Tymoshenko’s government need, bypassing the parliament. There is no question that the Party of Regions recognizes this possibility.

Therefore, it is likely that conflict will be soon resolved and the Verkhovna Rada must resume its work in the nearest future. By permitting this to happen and despite the technical defeat, the Party of Regions will still remain the winner. After all, the problem is not NATO.

First published at ХайВей// HighWay on February 19, 2008

http://h.ua/story/84206/

The 2007 Parliamentary Elections: Winners, Losers, and Coalition Prospects

By Ilya Khineyko

On 30 September, for the second time in two years, Ukraine held parliamentary elections, which were recognized as free and fair by international observers from the West and Russia. Five blocs and parties: the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense (OU-PSD, NUNS in the Ukrainian acronym), the Tymoshenko bloc, the Party of Regions (PofR), the Communist Party, and the Lytvyn bloc garnered more than the 3% required to get into the new parliament. It is, however, far from certain when the political forces represented in the new Rada will be able to form a parliamentary majority and appoint a new government. As it stands, the political crisis that has permeated the Ukrainian political scene since last spring is far from over. Some unexpected political alliances might emerge from the protracted political discussions that are likely to follow the announcement of the final results on 15 October. The Party of Regions has the largest percentage and highest number of seats, followed closely by the Tymoshenko Bloc, while the pro-presidential OU-PSD is a distant third. The two other factions in the new parliament have less than fifty seats combined, but it is widely expected that the smallest faction, the Lytvyn Bloc, could play the role of a kingmaker in the new parliament.

Results of 2006 Parliamentary Elections

Party Seats Percentage

Party of Regions 175 34.37
Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko 156 30.71
NUNS 72 14.5
Communist Party 27 5.39
Bloc Volodymyr Lytvyn 20 3.96

In assessing these results, a background of the events leading up to this election is useful. The election season in Ukraine began on 2 April when President Yushchenko issued a decree dissolving the previous convocation of the Verkhovna Rada. What seemed a last resort on the part of the President came after the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and Speaker Oleksandr Moroz had successfully wooed a handful of opposition deputies to switch sides, leading to talks on forming a constitutional majority, a move that would have rendered the president a purely ceremonial figure. Opinion polls indicated that the early elections would not change the status quo as the Party of Regions was expected to retain its high standings, while the fortunes of Our Ukraine seemed bleak. Indeed, the Party of Regions managed to increase slightly its percentage of the vote as did the OU-PSD bloc. However, both parties stand to lose a handful of seats each in the new parliament, due to the dramatic surge of the Tymoshenko bloc, the biggest winner in the elections. Tymoshenko’s parliamentary faction will expand from 129 to 156 deputies as a result of gaining 8% more votes than it received compared to the 2006 results. The combined tally of the OU-PSD and the Tymoshenko Bloc (228 seats) is enough to form a parliamentary majority and establish a new ‘Orange’ government. The events seemed to be following this course on election night when a jubilant Yulia Tymoshenko was greeted by leader of PSD and leading candidate on the OU-PSD candidate list, Yuri Lutsenko. During a joint press-conference both leaders vowed to stay true to the “ideals of the Maidan” and honor the pre-election agreements to form a coalition of democratic forces. However, on 3 October, President Yushchenko caused consternation among the Orange campwhen he issued a statement urging all political forces to “seek a compromise” and consider forming a broad coalition that would include the Party of Regions as well.

Why did the President decide to contradict the leader of his party and what lies behind the call for unity and compromise? Several observers pointed out that a Yulia Tymoshchenko government would seriously undermine if not completely dash Yushchenko’s hopes to run for the presidency again in 2008. By becoming the Prime Minister now, Yulia Tymoshenko would be able to use the powers of the office to boost her profile at the expense of Yushchenko to the point where nominating her as the presidential candidate of the Orange forces would be the only choice left to defeat Yanukovych or any other presidential hopeful from the Party of Regions. It appears in retrospect that Viktor Yanukovych made a huge political blunder by attempting to strip the president of the last vestiges of real power instead of forging a meaningful alliance with Our Ukraine that would relegate the Tymoshenko Bloc to the opposition benches. As the prominent Ukrainian pundit Yulia Lymar pointed out, “The problem of Yanukovych lies in the fact it took too long for him, that is until now, to realize that he needs Yushchenko as much as Yushchenko needs him… Unfortunately, this card cannot be played any more”

Yet, there is no unity within the OU-PSD bloc concerning Tymoshenko’s current candidacy. Whereas business groups in Our Ukraine represented by Yuri Yekhanurov are vehemently opposed to the possibility of Tymoshenko becoming Prime Minister as evidenced in a memo published by Ukrains’ka pravda, Yuri Lutsenko and his People’s Self-Defense group are clearly in favor of such a step. It is likely that if Yanukovych retains his prime-ministerial post, Lutsenko’s party members will break away from Our Ukraine and join forces with BYuT. Furthermore, the Orange electorate remains deeply antagonistic to the figure of Yanukovych, so Our Ukraine risks losing even more electoral support to the Tymoshenko Bloc if an alliance between Yushchenko and Yanukovych becomes a reality. In this light, the standings of Viktor Yanukovych within the PofR might not be as solid as they appear. As Ukrains’ka pravda’s analysis reveals, the Party of Regions candidate list was filled by people loyal to Rinat Akhmetov who is much more willing to seek rapport with Yushchenko in order to stop Yulia Tymoshenko even if it would mean changing the leadership of the party.

The prospect of an Orange coalition remains a more feasible option. After a closed door meeting with President Yushchenko on 4 October, Yuri Lutsenko opined that the Orange coalition might be formed by 15 October when the Central Electoral Committee is scheduled to announce the official results. However, given the factors described above, Ukrainian politics may yield more surprises in the coming weeks.

Published by the Stasiuk Program for the Study of Contemporary Ukraine, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. This article may be reproduced with appropriate acknowledgement.