JOHN MARONE, KYIV
YUSHCHENKO - THE DAY AFTER
It is an established fact that Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has lost his chance to be re-elected. His public support going into the first round on January 17 was dismally low, in what many saw as an indictment of the country’s 2004 Orange Revolution – a pro-Western popular uprising that lifted Yushchenko to power.
However, the end of the Yushchenko era may not be as definitive as it seems.
In the tangled world of Ukrainian law, signs are already appearing that Yushchenko might be able to hang on a bit longer. It was the judiciary, after all, that overturned his fraud-marred loss to the villain of the Orange Revolution, former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. And it was last-minute changes to the Ukrainian Constitution that ensured the executive chaos that was to characterize Yushchenko’s administration and doom his re-election.
On the other hand, Mr. Yushchenko doesn’t have many friends left to support his cause. Dogged by accusations of corruption and weakness at home and out West, he is perhaps most despised in Moscow, which symbolically refrained from sending a new ambassador to Kyiv until after January 17.
The Kremlin must be jubilant, and prepared to do everything in its power to ensure that either Yanukovych or Yushchenko’s former ally from the Orange Revolution Yulia Tymoshenko is inaugurated following the February 7 runoff.
With the two remaining candidates in the runoff both on good terms with the Kremlin, Yushchenko’s stated policy initiatives of NATO membership, European integration and the reinforcement of Ukraine’s national distinctness seem more distant than ever.
Indeed, if there is one thing that Yushchenko refused to waver on, it was such issues as North-Atlantic partnership, demanding that Russia pull its fleet out of Crimea, a clear pledge of EU membership, the revival of the Ukrainian language and international recognition of a Russian-sponsored genocide against Ukraine during the famine of the early 1930s.
But even in Yushchenko’s passionate campaign to forge Ukraine to the West, we can discern a lack of serious endeavor. It is one thing to preach pro-Western values, and quite another to practice them. It was Yushchenko, for example, who installed a shady middleman company to import gas from Russia, thus embroiling his country in a series of ‘gas wars’ with Moscow that resulted in gas shut-offs to an angry EU.
And the pro-Western reformer was not above situational alliances with the politicians he once characterized as thugs, murderers and Kremlin puppets.
Most of all, though, the last five years under Yushchenko are remembered for their chaos, bickering, and lack of progress in just about any of the Orange ideals.
Was Yushchenko just a starry-eyed idealist to spend so much time and effort trying to promote the Ukrainian language, when the country faced more pressing issues? Wouldn’t it have been more prudent to avoid angering Russia on issues such as NATO membership until the nation had weaned itself off cheap Russian gas?
One might even be forgiven for suspecting that Yushchenko emphasized the unattainable pie in the sky to divert attention from the shady undertakings that he continued to allow on the ground.
Nevertheless, to paint the man as a charlatan would also be unfair. During Russia’s short war against Georgia in August 2008, Yushchenko showed distinct self sacrifice – whether to help out a fellow post-Soviet maverick or an ally of Ukraine, he stuck to his principles.
And regardless of who wins the February 7 runoff, the media freedom enjoyed under Yushchenko will be sorely missed.
Tymoshenko would be a stronger leader than Yushchenko, but she often comes on too strong, placing democratic ideals second to political expedience. As for Yanukovych, he has never proclaimed any democratic ideals, leaving one to recall the strong-armed tactics he utilized as premier.
Yushchenko sometimes pleaded with the media for understanding, chided it for critiquing his family, but by and large Ukrainian society experienced a liberal thaw following the Kuchma years.
Yushchenko will also thaw – from the leader behind the position of ‘West or bust’ to the possible head of a pro-Western fringe party. We can expect him to seek some kind of immunity from prosecution in any case, as Ukrainian political tradition demands.
Although the outgoing president has shied away from directly endorsing a successor, most agree that he supports Yanukovych. With this in mind, it wouldn’t take a great deal of imagination to foresee Yushchenko playing Yanukovych’s foil, the pro-Western barking dog discredited to the sidelines of Ukrainian history, something akin to the role of the discredited Communists under Kuchma.
Yushchenko has already shown himself to be more theorist than practitioner of Western integration, and soon his job could match his talents.
There is however another - granted, more remote – possible exit strategy for Yushchenko that cannot be ruled out completely. Tymoshenko is just as fiercely determined to take power as Yanukovych’s team, which could lead to another chaotic stalemate if the results are close.
The sides, especially Yanukovych’s Region’s Party are already strengthening their position in the courts, the Central Electoral Commission, etc.
Only this time, the post-election battle lines will not be so clear cut – between democrats and despots, Orange and Blue, change and stagnation.
This time, the tangled mess that is Ukraine’s legal system could bog down the recognition of a new Ukrainian leader for months, leaving the faded hero of revolutions past in place to continue overseeing the chaos.
This time, neither side would be willing to give in, seek compromise, as Yushchenko was the day before.
John Marone, a columnist of Eurasian Home website, Kyiv, Ukraine
January 29, 2010
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