JOHN MARONE, KYIV
UKRAINE’S REVOLUTION CONTINUES TO REVOLVE
Revolutions by their very nature revolve, and Ukraine’s is no exception.
The country’s Orange Revolution, which pitted the pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko against the Moscow-supported Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, is still in motion.
After the mass street demonstrations of late 2004, Yushchenko became president and an international hero overnight, while Yanukovych, the chosen successor to the oligarchic regime of outgoing President Leonid Kuchma, was vilified at home and abroad for his fraud-filled presidential bid.
Since then, Yushchenko, who promised his countrymen Western integration and reform, has been subject to the power of centrifugal force, as his political and ideological opponents try to push him to the periphery of executive authority.
The first year and a half of Yushchenko’s presidency was marked by infighting among his Orange allies. The Orange image was tarnished, but Ukraine’s brisk economic development and enhanced democratic atmosphere kept optimism high.
Few saw reason for concern.
Then events took another turn, with Yanukovych’s Regions party coming out on top of the March 2006 parliamentary elections.
Sporting a new, more professional image polished by well-paid American PR gurus, Yanukovych was quick to take the initiative and keep things changing.
Recruiting the Socialists, who had stood alongside Yushchenko in his rise to power, the Regions and Communists formed their own majority in parliament.
Yanukovych was then elected premier by the majority, which enjoyed more powers than ever in independent Ukraine, thanks to a package of controversial constitutional reforms pushed through during the Orange Revolution.
From there on out, Yanukovych and his leftist allies went about blocking or reversing all of Yushchenko’s attempts at Western integration, sidelining the president along the way.
The onslaught on Yushchenko’s executive privileges continued unabated until April 2, when the president signed a decree dismissing the parliament and calling for snap elections.
The final straw in Yushchenko’s patience was when the Regions and its allies threatened to create a constitutional majority via the recruitment of opposition MPs.
If they had succeeded, Yushchenko would have been deprived of one his last levers of power, the presidential veto.
Leading up to his April 2 decree, the president had been conducting an internal revolution of his own, cleansing his team of politicians who supported cooperation with the Regions.
The personnel changes, which also affected the pro-presidential Our Ukraine party, put Yushchenko more in line with the parliament’s fifth faction – the bloc of fiery opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.
Together with the Socialists, Tymoshenko was a key Yushchenko ally during the Orange Revolution, but the president fired her as premier in autumn 2005.
Observers cited Orange infighting.
Now the Orange Revolution, with Yushchenko and Tymoshenko again pitted against their old foe Yanukovych, has come full circle.
Nevertheless, things are different this time around.
Yushchenko is president now, not an opposition leader. Yanukovych is again premier, but one with a better image abroad and lots of Yushchenko’s former supporters in his camp.
The president controls the military and State Security Service, while Yanukovych leads the government and parliament.
As for the legislature, it’s as split as much of the rest of the country. When Yushchenko dismissed the parliament on April 2, the majority refused to obey, challenging the presidential decree with the Constitutional Court.
But despite calls from Western governments for a legal resolution of the conflict, the Constitutional justices have shown themselves more loyal to partisan interests and thus incapable of reaching a joint decision.
In 2004, it was the Supreme Court that had cancelled Yanukovych’s initial fraudulent victory over Yushchenko in the presidential elections.
But that was then.
Another change this time around is that the crowds that gathered on Kyiv’s Independent Square, replete with tents and stages full of pop stars, are a fraction of the size they were in 2004, and most demonstrators are rumored to be paid for their attendance.
Things keep revolving, but the average Ukrainian is not in the revolutionary mood. Support for Ukraine’s revolutionary president has also been lukewarm from abroad.
But the revolution continues nevertheless.
Yushchenko has to keep things turning in his favor.
On Friday, May 4, he and his political nemesis announced to the country and the world that they had finally reached a compromise. New elections would be held, they said.
European leader congratulated the two men. The country’s stock market showed record trading in response.
But the revolution is not over, by a long shot.
The following Monday, May 7, majority lawmakers, especially the leftists, began sowing doubt on the so-called compromise.
If new elections are held, recent polls show that Our Ukraine, the Regions and BYuT will definitely make it past the three-percent barrier. The Socialists, especially after their sell-out to the Regions last year, probably won’t. The Communists have a better chance, but their electorate of pensioners who pine for the Soviet past, is dying out.
The leftists, who control the speaker and first deputy speaker position in parliament, will try to block the elections at every turn.
The Regions will connive with their leftist coalition partners in order to force more concessions from Yushchenko, who has staked his reputation as a strong leader on making the parliament submit.
Regions is calling for elections later in the year, after the higher pension and salaries it recently pushed through kick in for voters.
Yushchenko has already changed the original date of the snap elections from May 27 to June 24, but the parliamentary majority continues to meet and pass laws. He can’t afford to be seen as weak.
The Region has time on its side but Yushchenko doesn’t.
To keep the momentum of change in his favor, the president must continue putting pressure on the government and majority.
Most analysts say this means more personnel changes.
In the last month, the president has already replaced three Constitutional Court judges and the prosecutor-general.
As the conflict between him and Yanukovych is constitutionally based, the president needs this kind of support.
Yushchenko could further exercise his prerogative to fire regional governors, putting in someone who would be useful during the next elections.
Likely outcomes include new election in late summer or early fall based on a political agreement.
It’s not colorful street protests or provocative interpretations of the country’s much abused constitution that drive change in Ukrainian politics, but backroom agreements between the so-called political elites. Ever since President Leonid Kuchma left the scene two years ago, along with his questionable multi-vector policy, Ukraine has been undergoing a revolution – between the two Viktors, Donetsk and Kyiv, East and West – and it’s still not clear where the country will stop or when.
John Marone, Kyiv Post Senior Journalist, based in Ukraine.
May 14, 2007
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