EDITORIAL: Dirty politics, as usual (02/03/02)

EDITORIAL

Dirty politics, as usual

Ukrainian elections have never been orderly, clean or totally transparent, and this year's Verkhovna Rada balloting should be no different, given recent developments.

There are politicians in the country who believe that elections, are a no-holds-barred affair and that it is okay to employ unethical and downright dirty tactics to manipulate events and voter sympathies for one's political benefit. The methods already used in an attempt to derail the election campaigns of Viktor Yuschenko, the ex-prime minister and former chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, and the effort by state authorities to limit the physical movement of Yulia Tymoshenko, whose election bloc is a favorite with the anti-Kuchma forces, do not bode well for this year's Ukrainian parliamentary elections scheduled for March 31.

Never mind that President Leonid Kuchma has made it plain that he will not allow election day irregularities to take place and that the leaders of the largest parties and election blocs have pledged to the world that the vote will be the cleanest and most transparent in the history of independent Ukraine. The political positioning, mudslinging and bloodletting started even before the campaign officially begins on February 9.

Mr. Yuschenko, who leads in most polls with anywhere from 15 to 21 percent voter support, has already taken two major political hits. First, his integrity and sincerity were questioned by the release of phone conversations, recorded by someone without his knowledge, in which he and Kyiv Mayor Oleksander Omelchenko were heard talking about ousting Rada Vice-Chairman Viktor Medvedchuk from his post. Instead of undermining Mr. Yuschenko's image as an honest and straightforward politician, the tapes tended to tarnish Mr. Omelchenko's reputation as a level-headed leader.

In the second attack, businessman and politician Oleksander Rzhavskyi, a rather nondescript lawmaker who achieved some fame when he ran unsuccessfully for the presidency in 1999 only to slip back into obscurity afterwards, tried to usurp the Yuschenko name and reputation either to besmirch it or to ride it to victory by incorporating it into the name of his election bloc, the For Yuschenko Bloc.

Ms. Tymoshenko has been the object of several vicious political attacks from the highest levels of government in an unsuccessful effort not only to smear her but also to wipe her off the political map. In the latest flap, an appeals court set aside a ruling by a lower court that had cleared Ms. Tymoshenko of money-laundering charges and reinstated an order by the Procurator General's Office not allowing her to leave Kyiv. The decision has drawn much controversy because it was handed down without either the defendant or her attorney being present. Most political observers believe the court proceeding was obviously rigged against Ms. Tymoshenko. Ukrainian law states that a defendant can miss two court appearances before a court can rule on the case without him or her present. No one was in attendance for the ruling because Ms. Tymoshenko was injured in an automobile accident on her way to the court proceeding.

Obviously someone is trying to do as much damage to Mr. Yuschenko and Ms. Tymoshenko as possible. Particularly in the case of Mr. Yuschenko, determining who is behind the efforts is not easy. However, he himself has noted that two political entities brought down his government and those are the two power centers with which he cannot cooperate politically. One is the For a United Ukraine bloc, headed by Volodymyr Lytvyn, who happens to be President Kuchma's chief of staff; the other is Mr. Medvedchuk's Social Democratic Party (United).

But in the end maybe this sort of dirty gamesmanship truly benefits those who are the subjects of the attacks. Mr. Yuschenko's even-handed demeanor and restrained reaction have to an extent boomeranged on those who would have the young politician covered in mud and sinking into political obscurity. Likewise, earlier attempts to discredit Ms. Tymoshenko backfired, in part because like a good judoist she warded off the attacks and used her considerable public relations talents to turn them to her advantage. Many in Ukraine today see her as a sort of political Joan of Arc.

It's a sure thing that there will be more such attacks and smear tactics as candidates and parties become fully engaged in the campaign. Unfortunately for the Ukrainian nation, this has become a sad tradition of Ukrainian electoral politics.

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