JOHN MARONE, KYIV
UKRAINE'S FOOTBALL POLITICS
The only thing that causes Ukrainians to passionately take sides, cry foul and then throw up their hands in disappointment more than their football is their politics.
More than just a game, politics the Ukrainian way is about unquestioning loyalty to one’s team to the point of bending every rule in the book for the sake of a victory chock-full of financial incentives.
As a result, the country’s political parties, just like its football squads, often fall short of European and international standards.
Western democracy, as well as sport, can also exceed the boundaries of healthy competition, but rarely reaches the point of all out war.
The same cannot be said of Ukrainian politics, where the lack of impartial judges and clear rules makes every match a fight to the death.
The aggression is particularly evident when one team loses control of the ball, i.e. the parliament and government.
The Donetsk-based Party of Regions is in just such a situation. Just like the Donetsk-based Shakhtar football club, which is controlled by Regions' richest member, the party has waged a war of supremacy against a Kyiv-based rival for years.
But now the eastern-oriented Regions and its leftist allies have been forced to turn over power to a coalition of Ukraine’s Orange parties, which command the western half of the country from the capital.
Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych has acknowledged that he is officially in opposition, but judging by his rhetoric one gets the feeling that he is in a trench, ready to deliver a fatal blow to his political opponents as soon as the opportunity arises.
“Our goal is to replace the [Orange] authorities by democratic means,” he said during a press conference to announce the formation of a shadow government on December 24.
Yanukovych, as well as his supporters among lawmakers and voters, apparently believes that a shadow government is supposed to harass and obstruct the work of the legitimate government, instead of keeping it in line through monitoring and public accountability.
This line of thinking would certainly be in keeping with what we have seen in the past from the Donetsk clan, which first attempted to rig the presidential elections in 2004, then, after regaining control of the government in 2006, tried to muscle away executive authority from President Viktor Yushchenko.
The result of this seemingly never-ending power struggle has been a string of repeat elections, which Yanukovych has suggested may continue.
“Everything will depend on how the [Orange] authorities act. If they act effectively, no one will bother them … If they don’t work effectively, if we see that they cannot work effectively, then there is no other way,” he said during a television interview on December 23.
Besides the need to clarify just what Mr. Yanukovych means by the words “effective work" and "no other way", there is also the issue of public accountability. Ukrainians from the east and west are sick and tired of repeat elections.
There are only so many blatant penalties, delays of game and suspect decisions by referees that fans will tolerate.
During this year’s September 30 repeat parliamentary election, the majority of Ukrainians didn’t just vote the Orange parties back into power, they punished those politicians responsible for dividing the Orange front, and thus splitting executive authority, in the first place.
As a result, a key Regions ally, the Socialists, didn’t get into parliament, costing both parties their control over the government. More importantly, the party of President Yushchenko lost its Orange leadership to the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, which received twice as many votes.
As the country’s new prime-minister, Ms. Tymoshenko now has control of Ukraine’s political football, barely.
Having recovered from a stint in jail under former President Leonid Kuchma and then a humiliating dismissal from her first premiership under Orange ally Yushchenko himself, Tymoshenko has shown that she can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, scoring political points while pleasing the crowds of Ukrainian spectators.
And unlike either Yanukovych or President Yushchenko, Tymoshenko can play both sides of Ukraine’s political pitch.
Advocating a pro-Western policy but originally from the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, Tymoshenko headed straight for Donetsk after being confirmed as premier.
This not only makes her a threat to the Regions goalkeeper but to fellow Orange footballer Viktor Yushchenko, who is worried about sitting out the rest of his political career on the bench.
Although Tymoshenko has publicly denied any presidential ambitions, she now commands the attention of the stadium spectators and doesn’t intend to lose it.
“We are beginning to clean house. I will do everything to prevent dirty, shadow money from ever becoming a key factor in Ukrainian politics again, so that lawmakers can’t be bought like cattle at a market,” she said on December 20.
In addition to fighting corruption, Ms. Tymoshenko has also promised to cancel lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution and open the state coffers to the masses.
However, with only a wafer-thin majority in parliament, Tymoshenko has also got to keep her eye on the ball.
Inflation and the price of imported energy continue to soar, but her ratings might not for long if the economy takes a nosedive.
In a match without referees, everything depends on how many goals Tymoshenko can score, and more importantly, her approval ratings among the crowds.
During the constitutional power struggle between Yushchenko and Yanukovych that ensued when the latter returned as premier in the summer of 2006, Ukraine’s courts proved indecisive if not per pay.
Tymoshenko will be even more vulnerable to fouls and bad calls as the 2009 presidential elections near.
Nor can she depend on much help from the international community, who have questioned her commitment to free markets and flinched at her populist promises.
In rhetoric, Tymoshenko, Yushchenko and Yanukovych all claim to be liberal and democratic, yet badly needed reforms continue to be stalled.
And no one is expecting a breakthrough, as each team, indeed individual players, appear intent on preventing one another from scoring any points with the public.
If Ukraine's politicians want to play in the big leagues - gaining acceptance into the World Trade Organization and eventually the European Union - they are not only going to have to think about playing hard to win matches and please fans, but also about playing fair.
If they don't, they won't even be able to win at home, and no one will want to play with them abroad.
John Marone, a columnist of Eurasian Home website, Kyiv, Ukraine
December 28, 2007
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