JOHN MARONE, KYIV
UKRAINE’S 2010 ELECTIONS: THE ANTI-REVOLUTION
Ukraine first surfaced on the modern world map in the autumn of 2004, during the country’s euphoric Orange Revolution. The streets of Kyiv became a stage of democratic heroism for international television crews. Fear of a real revolution gradually subsided, as the old guard of journalist-killing, all-powerful fat cats seemed to sink into the soiled woodwork of the nation’s dark recent past.
But even then, in December 2005, as top-notch foreign envoys negotiated a settlement in the capital’s halls of power, as the country’s courts finally began acting like judicial institutions, the seeds of an anti-revolution were being sowed.
The hero of the Orange Revolution, Viktor Yushchenko, was already demonstrating his tragic flaw – a serious lack of backbone – by yielding to last minute constitutional changes that would compromise the very presidency that he and his supporters had fought so hard to invest.
Over the next five years of his troubled presidency, Mr. Yushchenko would go on to yield much more: dozens of political allies, the standing of his once powerful party, his own personal reputation and future legacy, and – most tragically – the future of a democratic Ukraine. Ironically, Mr. Yushchenko has truly embodied the spirit of the Orange Revolution, which promised everything, sacrificed little and delivered even less.
Ukraine is now freer than possibly ever before in its volatile history as a nation, but this freedom is closer to anarchy, a temporary free-for-all, always threatening to end in another lengthy period of foreign subjugation.
The heroine of the Orange Revolution was current Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Where Yushchenko was a victim (of poison, etc.), she went on the attack; where Yushchenko gave in, she gave hell (not least in refusing to change the Constitution in December 2004), and where he remained in power, Tymoshenko went back into opposition – against him.
To a large extent, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko represent the two sides of the Orange Revolution: its stated ideals and its unfulfilled struggle for power.
As it turns out, the Orange forces never obtained real power. For one thing, it now appears more than likely that Yushchenko, as well as his countless supporters never really wanted to overturn the existing system. Yushchenko himself was a product and member of that system, a man who once said his roundly disgraced predecessor Leonid Kuchma was like a father to him.
The businessmen and top officials who supported Yushchenko also must have realized his penchant for indecision and hesitation, and decided that this would give them the freedom of action unattainable under Kuchma or, for that matter, unattainable in any democratic state.
Lastly, the Ukrainian people themselves seemed all too ready to proclaim Yushchenko “a messiah”, as if the man’s readiness to suffer indignation at the hands of his enemies would make him a good leader.
Tymoshenko soon galvanized the real revolutionaries behind the revolution, fighting pitched battles with gas barons and the Kremlin, and returning to head the government despite Yushchenko’s rapprochement with his enemies. She was and still is leader better suited to revolution than stable office.
These enemies, who rigged the 2004 elections, murdered vocal opponents, stole state enterprises with impunity and called black white from the screens and pages of all the media that they continue to control, were never punished by Mr. Yushchenko.
Instead, they adapted to the new democratic environment, incompletely embraced by an increasingly divided Orange team, itself proving more and more vulnerable to the lure of corruption.
They hired Western PR gurus and borrowed money on European exchanges. Instead of killing journalists, they bought them or sued them in London courts. In Ukrainian courts, they continued to steal assets, now under the new name of “corporate raiders”.
Victor Yanukovych, a two–time felon, whose fraud-filled bid for the presidency was overturned to unanimous approval by all but the Kremlin and base supporters in Donbass, also underwent change.
In 2006, he returned as a democratically-elected premier, unrepentant of his role as the villain of the Orange Revolution and contemptuous of Yushchenko’s flaccid executive authority.
Even though he was unable to capitalize on his comeback, he has survived to run for president again, five years later, with polls predicting his ultimate victory.
For most Ukrainian voters, and for that matter foreign governments and international investors, the whole drama has been tiring, disappointing and apparently pointless.
Ukraine is not joining Europe any time soon, and it can no longer expect any favors from Russian either. The economy has picked up, but so have personal debt and prices. There is also more freedom, but attained at the price of greater instability, uncertainty and corruption.
Now, five years later, you don’t see any rallies on the streets of the capital. The political drama is now being played out almost exclusively on TV screens. Almost all the main characters from 2004 are the same, only Yushchenko is now president, Yulia Tymoshenko heads the government and Yanukovych is in the opposition. Yanukovych’s campaign leader from 2004, Serhiy Tyhypko, is now a candidate in his own right, while career technocrat Arseny Yatsenyuk started out strong but lost steam somewhere during the past year’s campaign season.
The deflating drama of the past five years is however, deceptive. Beneath the surface of the country’s fabric, a new anti-revolution is brewing.
While in 2004 the problem was no foreign investment or fair competition, now Ukrainian industry and commerce are crippled by hard currency debt accumulated to fuel their expansion. A sell-off is in progress, and if the dark forces that failed to get their way in 2004 return to power, it’s going to be a fire sale for Kremlin-backed oligarchs and their well-connected local counterparts.
The geopolitical considerations of East versus West are also at stake but subdued in the public conscience. With state gas company Naftogaz on the verge of bankruptcy and Europe sick of shut-offs, Gazprom has proven to be the anecdote to the scourge of color revolutions that had threatened Moscow’s control over the post-Soviet space. As for NATO, it did little to back up Georgia in 2008.
Ukraine’s anti-revolution is not being covered by international television crews but by business reports; the heroes are now in retreat before an enemy with a new face; and this time change is likely to be carried out by leaders with more backbone but a lot less democratic ideals.
John Marone, a columnist of Eurasian Home website, Kyiv, Ukraine
January 15, 2010
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