JOHN MARONE, KYIV
ELECTIONS IN LIEU OF STABILITY
Ukraine is going to hold its fifth general elections in as many years, but don't expect the upcoming parliamentary vote to stabilize the country's chaotic political arena any time soon. Ever since President Viktor Yushchenko was elected on a pro-Western platform back in 2005, the seats of power in the former Soviet republic have been contested in a no-holds-barred dogfight that is desperate to the point of absurdity.
It took two elections to get Mr. Yushchenko into the president's chair during the country's internationally renowned Orange Revolution, which promised a new era of democracy, market reforms and civil rights. But since then, there have been two more, parliamentary polls; not counting the one the president has just called.
"I call on all Ukrainian voters, all thinking people, all Ukrainian citizens, all Ukrainian patriots to take action. The decision, without a doubt, is yours. Yours is the highest state responsibility, as you elect your country's politicians," Mr. Yushchenko said in a taped address to the nation televised on the evening of October 8.
With double-digit inflation continuing since earlier this year, and the country's stock market in a free fall, there probably aren't many Ukrainians, however, who are willing to take responsibility for the state of their nation. On the contrary, the election weary electorate knows all too well who's responsible for the current fix they're in: Mr. Yushchenko; his Orange ally turned enemy - Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko; and Viktor Yanukovych, the villain of the Orange Revolution who went on to do a stint as premier under Yushchenko before being pushed out as a result of the second parliamentary elections held last year.
True, on more than one occasion, Ukrainians did take the responsibility for their country by voting in favor of either Yushchenko or Tymoshenko, who both promised them some of the goodies found in the West, or the Moscow-friendly Viktor Yanukovych, who appealed more to the country's Russian-speaking east and south.
But they didn't have much of a choice, as most of the country's other politicians had either lined up behind one of the dynamic trio or proven to be no better themselves. And with the next presidential elections scheduled for early 2010, things don't look to be getting any better. Bickering over budgets and manipulation of the courts has continued unabated, as badly needed reforms remain bogged down in partisan politics.
Worse yet, voters can no longer even decide along the traditional East-West issue.
After being fired as Yushchenko's first premier in the fall of 2005, Ms. Tymoshenko began to accuse the president of trying to form a grand coalition with their common ideological opponent, Mr Yanukovych.
Indeed, following the parliamentary elections of 2006, Yushchenko procrastinated on forming an Orange coalition between his flagship Our Ukraine faction and Tymoshenko's BYuT, only to allow Yanukovych to cobble together a majority with the Communists and the hitherto Orange-friendly Socialists. Since the Kremlin was the most conspicuous supporter of Yanukovych's fraud-marred bid for the presidency, cooperation with his Regions faction was portrayed as selling out to Moscow.
The result was that the initial instability of Yushchenko's first year in power turned into a more entrenched instability predicated on Prime Minister Yanukovych's attempt to usurp Yushchenko's executive power. When Yushchenko managed to hold early parliamentary elections in 2007, the resulting configuration in parliament allowed him another chance to make amends with Tymoshenko with the formation of a renewed Orange coalition.
But the president's relations with the fiery femme fatale proved no better than those with Yanukovych. As Tymoshenko's popularity grew and Yushchenko's shrunk, tension was inevitable - especially as the 2010 elections neared. A recent poll has given the premier a 33 percent public confidence rating, the highest among her competitors for head of state. She is followed by Volodymyr Lytvyn (the leader of the parliament's fifth and smallest faction behind BYuT, Yanukovych's Regions, the president's faction and the Communists) with 30 percent, and Yanukovych with nearly 29 percent. Yushchenko got just over 13 percent.
And to increase her odds of a victory, Ms. Tymoshenko is not above kicking her former ally in the fight for Western reforms while he's down. And she's doing it with a Russian boot. Yushchenko continues to stake his cloudy political career on nationalist issues such as promoting the Russian language and leading the country to NATO and eventually EU membership. Ms. Tymoshenko, on the other hand, seems to think her best interests lie in repeating the East-West balancing act of Yushchenko's infamous predecessor, Leonid Kuchma.
Known as an outspoken populist, Tymoshenko also has an excellent sense of political timing. Just as Yushchenko was sticking his neck out further than any head of state ever should - by flying to Tbilisi to publicly support Georgian President Saakashvili during his defiance of Russian military intervention - the lady in braids decided to show the Kremlin that she was more sensitive to their interests.
Unlike Yushchenko or, for that matter, many of Ukraine's western neighbors, Tymoshenko was reluctant to criticize Kremlin jingoism. In fact, during a recent visit to Moscow, the Ukrainian premier sat silently beside Vladimir Putin as he all but directly accused Mr. Yushchenko of illegally selling arms to Georgia for use against Russian troops.
Yushchenko had pushed the Kremlin's patience to its limits this year with his campaign to persuade the international community to recognize Ukraine's famine of the 1930s as a genocide perpetrated by Moscow, and the hosting of the universal patriarch in Kyiv in what looked like an attempt to re-subordinate Ukraine's Orthodox faithful from the Moscow Patriarch to Kyiv’s Filaret.
Since Moscow's traditional favorite, Viktor Yanukovych, has proven himself incapable of leading the pro-Russian flocks in Ukraine over the years (first fumbling his 2004 presidential bid and then allowing the Orange parties to retake control of the government in 2007), Ms. Tymoshenko has seen a window of opportunity.
In the hopes of securing lower gas prices and possibly outside support for her presidential bid, Ukraine's lady premier began yielding to Russian interests in developing hydrocarbon deposits in Ukraine's Black Sea shelf even before the Georgian war in August. Following her more recent Moscow visit, she claimed to have rid Ukraine's gas import lines from Moscow of its pesky intermediaries while securing a gradual increase in gas prices, although the document signed was only a memorandum.
The net result of Tymoshenko's volte-face in Russian relations is that voters broadly concerned with continuing Ukraine's Western integration, for lack of influence on more specific reform policies, don't know whom they can trust now.
Ms. Tymoshenko has even flip flopped on the home front, teaming up with the Regions in a parliamentary vote to limit Yushchenko's constitutional powers (despite the fact that Regions and their Communists allies tried to bring down her government with a no-confidence just a few weeks earlier)
The embattled Ukrainian president's parliamentary faction responded by leaving the Orange coalition and thus preparing the grounds for Yushchenko’s decision to call yet another early election in the legislature.
The president himself cried "treason," but Ms. Tymoshenko continued to claim that Yushchenko's Secretariat was the one sleeping with the enemy.
"I want to firmly declare that no talks are being held between BYuT and the Party of Regions, nor the Party of Regions and BYuT, as it was the Party of Regions and the [Presidential] Secretariat that was in a scheme to destroy the democratic coalition and go for early elections," she said on October 7.
Whoever one is inclined to believe - if anyone - the dogfight looks set to only get nastier and include more and more dogs. The Our Ukraine - People's Self Defense faction has long been bursting at the seams, with some lawmakers more supportive of the president, and others friendly with BYuT. Representative of the premier's team have already ruled out a future coalition with pro-presidential lawmakers, but many would surely be opposed to joining ranks with the Regions. And Regions itself, which is second only to the Communists in party discipline has already shown signs of internal stress, with Yanukovych expelling Raisa Bogatyreva, confidant of party money bags Rinat, from the ranks for taking an independent stand on the Georgian war.
The snap elections will also raise the hopes of parties like the Socialists who were kicked out of parliament during the last poll following their 2006 agreement to join a coalition with Regions and the Communists.
Other fringe parties such as the radical Progressive Socialists will likely try to squeeze past the post. And the formation of new parties including defectors from the big three cannot be ruled out.
But until the snap elections are actually held, all of these dogs are just going to be making a lot of noise and kicking up all kinds of dust. Holding their leashes above the fray will be President Yushchenko, who can again challenge the country’s already much challenged constitution to delay election day. Even if voting comes sooner, the coalition-building period could drag on for months, as it did the last two times. If recent election history is any indication of what lies ahead, Ukraine is in for its most unstable political period yet.
John Marone, a columnist of Eurasian Home website, Kyiv, Ukraine
October 9, 2008
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