JOHN MARONE, KYIV
WHAT’S AT ISSUE IN UKRAINE
The threat of Ukraine veering off the path of democratic development is greater now than ever before, with increasingly authoritarian Russia welcoming the opportunity to recoup lost influence in the region. Yet, unlike during Ukraine’s democratic Orange Revolution over two years ago, Europe and North America appear more reluctant to publicly support the country’s pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko in his latest and arguably most important battle with his eastern-oriented Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.
Yushchenko decided to challenge Yanukovych’s months-long power grab by dismissing the parliament on April 2 and calling for snap elections.
Yanukovych responded by rallying the majority he controls in the nation’s legislature to ignore the presidential order.
The result has been a constitutional crisis that has once again divided the country into eastern and western camps.
International media were quick to draw comparisons with the Orange Revolution of 2004, which also featured the mass street demonstrations and defiance of executive authority seen today.
But now Yushchenko is president, not an opposition leader fighting to unseat an internationally discredited opponent.
And his image as the country’s democratic savior has been sullied by years of indecision and conflict with his former Orange allies.
Yanukovych, on the other hand, led his Regions faction to victory in last year’s parliamentary elections, which were dubbed the country’s cleanest ever.
Moreover, it was Yushchenko himself who endorsed to Yanukovych’s bid to head the government, which thereafter began to aggressively assume most of the president’s significant powers.
But the real significance of Ukraine’s current political crisis lies not in the war of wills between the two Viktors, nor even the larger geopolitical implications of Independent Ukraine possibly being forced into a revamped Soviet Union.
The real significance is that all legitimate offices of power in the country have been called into serious doubt.
Unlike during the heady days of 2004, when the Supreme Court decisively cancelled Yanukovych’s fraud-marred presidential victory, Ukraine’s high courts are now as polarized and dysfunctional as the executive and legislative branches of power.
Today’s conflict is rooted in the controversial constitutional amendments that Yushchenko agreed to during the peak of the Orange Revolution in order to secure political support for his second attempt at the presidency.
The consequences of the president’s compromise, the first in a string of fatal ones, has been a level of legal chaos that the justices of the nation’s overwhelmed Constitutional Court are incapable or unwilling to resolve.
Justices have done everything from feigning illness to crying political pressure in their attempts to avoid taking a decision.
The development of an independent judiciary is something that takes time, and a dedication to reforms that has been sorely lacking in the newly independent state.
That’s why the Regions bloc’s insistence that snap elections must be preceded by a ruling from the Constitutional Court cannot be taken seriously.
Yushchenko’s pledge to honor a ruling by the high court also looks like lip service.
If the Constitutional Court ever does take a decision it will be in line with an agreement reached beforehand between Yushchenko and Yanukovych.
Most political analysts are predicting some kind of a compromise deal, whereby Regions would agree to fresh elections later than the date of May 27 ordered by the president.
But such a deal is not guaranteed.
In a much weaker position than he was in 2004, Yushchenko may again feel compelled to agree to a compromise that will seal the fate of Ukrainian democracy once and for all.
A majority of Ukrainians supported Yushchenko as their president in 2004, while members of Yanukovych’s coalition got into parliament fairly less than two years later.
These same Ukrainian voters, however, did not approve Yanukovych as the country’s chief executive, a goal he seems to have set himself since taking control of the government last summer.
The issue is relevant, as Yushchenko and Yanukovych have very different ideas about the country’s foreign policy.
For example, Yushchenko is for joining the EU and NATO, while Yanukovych has sought closer ties with Moscow.
That’s why it is hardly surprising that Russia’s State Duma has again come out publicly in support of Yanukovych in his latest battle for power.
The Duma issued a statement on April 6 denouncing Yushchenko's decision to dissolve the parliament.
“Deputies of the State Duma express their sharply negative attitude to attempts to resolve the political crisis by the dismissal of the legitimately elected Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine,” the statement reads.
Although the Kremlin has avoided outward expressions of support for one side or another, Russian President Vladimir Putin has increasingly tried to rebuild his country’s prestige as a regional if not global power.
The string of so-called color revolutions held in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan a few years ago juxtaposed Western-style democracy with the Kremlin’s increasingly authoritarian policies in Russia’s own backyard.
More recently, the US has floated plans to set up a missile defense system in Poland, and President George Bush has signed legislation backing NATO membership for five countries, including Ukraine.
Russia has responded to what it perceives as Western encroachment by increasingly using the energy dependency of former Soviet republics and the newly expanded EU to dictate its will.
Ukraine, for example, had the price it pays for Russian and Central Asian gas doubled and then raised by another third within a year.
Western government officials, especially the US, have expressed concern about Moscow’s growing gas monopoly over its neighbors.
Nevertheless, the US State Department refrained from supporting President Yushchenko’s latest and possibly last ditch attempt to keep his country’s democratic development on track.
During a press briefing on April 4, two days after Yushchenko had dismissed the parliament and called for fresh elections, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: “Our view is that any political questions in Ukraine need to be resolved by the Ukraine Government and in accordance with their laws and their constitution.”
Yanukovych’s team would agree wholeheartedly with the wording of such a statement.
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's commissioner for external relations, also avoided ringing the alarm bell over Ukraine.
"There is an active and open political debate in Ukraine. This is a sign that democracy is at work in the country," she said.
Although Western governments’ reluctance to meddle in Ukraine’s internal affairs is understandable, the issues, as well as the stakes, are no less serious than during the Orange Revolution. As then, Yushchenko is calling for re-elections, demanding that the people decide the country’s fate, break the deadlock between warring officials in Kyiv. If the West doesn’t take a definite stance of principle, the outcome for Yushchenko and Ukraine may be different this time around.
John Marone, Kyiv Post editor, based in Ukraine.
April 16, 2007
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