NEWS AND VIEWS: You think Ukraine has problems... (10/17/04)

NEWS AND VIEWS

You think Ukraine has problems...

by David Marples

Last week [in late September], Canada's ambassador in Kyiv, Andrew Robinson, criticized Ukraine's presidential election campaign, arguing that irregularities would undermine democracy. He was duly admonished by the Ukrainian government in Kyiv. Evidently the ambassador's comments were made with the full approval of the Canadian Foreign Affairs Ministry.

There are some grounds for Mr. Robinson's concern. The leading candidate in the elections, Viktor Yushchenko, checked into a Vienna hospital after a suspected poisoning attempt. In past years, several political opponents of President Leonid Kuchma have died in suspicious circumstances.

Mr. Kuchma's government has made no secret of its support for the current prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych. Recently, while campaigning in western Ukraine, Mr. Yanukovych was struck by an object and fell to the ground. It turned out to have been nothing more lethal than an egg. Cynics have maintained that the whole incident was staged to prove that Mr. Yanukovych is equally vulnerable to death threats.

Such shenanigans aside, however, Canada's concern seems misdirected. The Ukrainians at least have a contest. One month prior to the election, it is impossible to forecast a winner. In contrast, Ukraine's neighbors have no such choices. A brief survey of the states closest, or most analogous to, Ukraine in demographic make-up and recent history reveals that the choices are truly limited.

The past week, for example, saw a parliamentary election in Kazakstan, ruled like a fiefdom by its only president since independence, Nursultan Nazarbayev. The campaign resulted in the triumph of two parties: the president's own Otan Party received 42 percent of the vote; and the Asar Party, led by the president's daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, received almost 20 percent. The government has become a family concern.

Earlier this year, Russia's presidential election was won convincingly in the first round by the incumbent, President Vladimir Putin, when none of the likely challengers (most notably Communist Leader Gennadii Zyuganov) decided to join the campaign. Since the tragic events in Beslan, Mr. Putin has cracked down on foreign residents in Moscow, abandoned the practice (supposedly enshrined in the Russian Constitution) of electing regional governors and pondered the idea of a government takeover of the giant oil company Yukos, whose former CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, remains in jail and has been accused of links to mafia bosses.

Belarus will hold a parliamentary election on October 17. Almost half the candidates were removed from the campaign at the registration stage, in one instance for declaring her pension to be less than 1 cent below the reality. Two leading rivals for president languish in jail, including a respected former ambassador to the Baltic states.

Meanwhile the president, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, has announced that the election will be accompanied by a referendum on whether he may run for a third term as president. He used the occasion of a public commemoration of the victims of Beslan to make the announcement, commenting that under his rule Belarus has never suffered a terrorist attack.

It would be the third such referendum under Mr. Lukashenka. The first reduced the power of the Parliament to a small rump body and removed the national flag and symbols; the second amended the constitution to enhance presidential powers and ensure a first extension of his time in office. Polls suggest that Mr. Lukashenka will get his way.

Moldova lacks even a unified country, with a breakaway Slavic republic on the Dniestr River still defiantly resisting rule from Kishinev after a 12-year hiatus. It also occupies the lamentable position of "poorest country in Europe."

At least in Ukraine, Mr. Kuchma, despite fears to the contrary, did not run for a third term. Nor has he managed to convince the electorate thus far that Mr. Yanukovych is a viable successor. Recently the parties supporting the prime minister lost their majority in the Ukrainian Parliament. Moreover, whenever there has been a transgression of electoral rules - and such problems began with the April mayoral contest in Mukachiv - international and national publicity has been rapid and damning.

This is not to argue that politics in Ukraine are democratic. Nevertheless, they are far more diverse, complex and unpredictable than in other post-Soviet states. Mr. Yushchenko, for example, ostensibly a pro-Western and pro-American candidate (he has an American wife) has announced that one of his first actions upon taking office would be to remove Ukrainian troops from Iraq. Mr. Yanukovych has vowed to keep them there.

Two other candidates are likely to receive significant votes: Socialist Party Leader Oleksander Moroz, and Communist Party Leader Petro Symonenko. No one knows to which of the leading candidates their support will eventually be transferred.

Perhaps Canada is expecting too much of Ukraine? True, it does not behave like the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe, which are now part of the European Union. The past 13 years have seen some disappointments. Corruption is endemic. Local city clans tend to run the economy and play a major role in politics. The government controls most of the media and TV channels.

But why single out Ukraine? The situation in Russia, Kazakstan, Belarus and Moldova is markedly worse in terms of voter choice. Our concern should surely be the general demise of democracy in former Soviet states.

Dr. David Marples is a professor of Russian history and director of the Stasiuk Program for the Study of Contemporary Ukraine, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta.

The article above appeared on September 29 in the "Globe and Mail Update," an online publication of that Toronto-based newspaper.

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