JOHN MARONE, KYIV
UKRAINE’S SAUSAGE FACTORY GETS A KICK START
A well-known Ukrainian politician said not too long ago that reaching political compromise in his country was a lot like the making of sausages – the average Ukrainian really wouldn’t want to observe the process.
Nevertheless, as the standoff between President Viktor Yushchenko and his arch rival Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych heads toward a settlement, the country’s sausage factory has been laid open to public view like never before, making it clear who really calls the shots and possibly affecting voters’ appetites in the next elections.
On May 4, Ukrainians were told that early parliamentary elections would be held, as Yushchenko had ordered a month earlier.
Yanukovych and the majority he controls in parliament had been steadfastly refusing to heed the presidential order, but now a deal appears to have been struck.
The exact date of the snap elections, as well as all kinds of other important legal issues, is still being worked out in backroom negotiations between the so-called political elites.
To the average Ukrainian and the international community, the elites have long been divided into two warring camps: President Yushchenko, who rose to power during the country’s Orange Revolution with promises of Western reform, and Yanukovych, who has tried to soften his pro-Russian image since returning as premier last year.
Things seemed much simpler during the Orange Revolution, regardless of whom one supported. Since then everything has been dragged through the slop of the sausage factory, including the country’s rather innocent constitution.
Ukrainians have held a cynical view of their leaders and the institutions that they control since Soviet times, but things like the media and privatization were starting to get a little more transparent following the Orange Revolution.
But ever since Yanukovych recovered from the ignominy of his defeat during the 2004 presidential elections to challenge Yushchenko’s monopoly on executive power, any illusions of a law-based system have vanished.
The main sausage makers tore into each other’s flesh in plain view of a public long used to a single strong executive leader.
As a result, the sausage factory shut down, with the president’s party joining an opposition boycott of the parliament, while the majority continued to pass laws.
The courts and prosecutors proved to be as helpless and partisan in providing a legal solution as everyone had suspected.
Despite their bluster and appeals to the international community, Yushchenko and Yanukovych looked equally impotent.
Particularly pathetic were the attempts to turn the conflict into a revamped Orange Revolution, with both sides claiming to be the champions of democracy and free trade.
Although foreign leaders expressed concern, all but the Russian Duma avoided taking sides this time.
After all, everyone at home and abroad had high hopes of Ukraine producing bigger and better sausages. All the economic indicators were showing that the country was looking attractive for investment and that Ukrainians were living better.
So as the prospect of compromise now seems all but certain, one has to look for other important players to credit.
The money bags in Yanukovych’s camp is industrialist Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man. His holding company Systems Capital Management has made serious efforts at transparency in recent years, with plans to conduct an IPO on the front burner.
Like most Ukrainian industrialists, Akhmetov realizes the importance of Western investment in modernizing his Soviet-era facilities.
Controversial political issues supported by the Regions like making Russian a second official language are fine for whipping up voter support in the country’s eastern regions, but Akhmetov, who is a member of Yanukovych’s parliamentary majority is in politics for business, not the other way around.
Despite his democratic rhetoric, Yushchenko is also not immune to the interests of Ukraine’s powerful tycoons.
Maybe that’s why he’s been careful not to alienate some of the less dogmatic elements in the Region’s bloc.
In the last month, the president has replaced two Constitutional Court judges and the prosecutor general, officials who have hampered his legal battle against Yanukovych.
But the new top prosecutor and one of the judges come from the Regions camp.
Whatever made Yanukovych concede to new elections, clearly it wasn’t a final ultimatum by Yushchenko, whose two years in office have been marked by one fatal concession after another.
And we need not credit only Akhmetov, as powerful a player as he is, with forcing a compromise.
Immediately after Yanukovych and Yushchenko announced that new elections would take place, top European officials were quick to send their blessings.
General Secretary of the Council of Europe Terry Davis said that he was “very pleased.”
“This is an important step towards the end of a dispute which has for too long blocked the normal functioning of the democratic institutions in the country. Now the priority should be to maintain a constructive dialogue and ensure that the elections will be free and fair and properly prepared,” reads a statement released by the Council of Europe on May 4.
No less important was the reaction of the market.
The price of blue chip stocks on Ukraine’s primary exchange rose by an average of 2-4 percent on the same day compromise was announced.
There are still a lot of details that have to be worked out in Ukraine’s political sausage factory, but clearly the higher powers have ruled in favor of compromise.
For one thing, the president’s Our Ukraine party, together with the faction of fiery opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko will have to return to parliament to hammer out legislation needed to hold the snap elections.
The actions of neither the opposition nor the majority have been on firm legal footing for quite some time, but now things have to be tidied up.
Feeling rather triumphant, Yushchenko again showed his usual inclination for compromise, suggesting that he would now work with the parliament that he dismissed a month ago.
“Maybe I will run a little ahead, if all conditions are met, I am ready to go to the Verkhovna Rada, and at a session of the Verkhovna Rada, after the passing of all relevant decisions, sign all the decisions that need to be signed,” he said on May 4.
Yushchenko has already compromised by stating he is willing to push back the date of the elections, which the government would prefer to hold later in the year, after the pension rises it approved kick in.
It’s not clear how such date shifting jives with the constitution, but neither side has been particularly worried about the constitution for some time now.
As for Yanukovych, the only thing he can do now is try to win more concessions during back room bargaining while trying to save face before voters.
Speaking to supporters in the center of Kyiv on May 4, the premier sounded much less defiant than even a day earlier.
“We have practically come to the single conclusion that there is no other way of resolving the crisis besides holding democratic and honest elections.
The question now is what conclusion Ukrainian voters have come to. Polls show that Regions, the pro-presidential Our Ukraine party and BYuT will again get into parliament, but Our Ukraine is expected to do even worse than last year, while BYuT stands to continue increasing its support.
As for the Communists and Socialists, the Regions’ allies in the majority, they may not make it in at all.
There is still a lot of messy work to be done in Ukraine’s sausage factory before the details of the next elections are revealed, with the final product – the new parliament – likely to contain a few new ingredients this time around.
John Marone, Kyiv Post Senior Journalist, based in Ukraine.
May 7, 2007
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