NOTES FROM UKRAINE: Taras Kuzio's blog (10/08/06)

NOTES FROM UKRAINE

Taras Kuzio's blog

September 22

The editorial in this week's edition of the Kyiv Post caught my eye. It asked "so who's leading the country now? It seems like a ship without a captain." The editorial was spot on. When you talk to American policy-makers - all friends of Ukraine - there is no other topic than the lack of leadership in Ukraine and a lack of clear strategy.

During personal conversations and during by-invitation closed seminars one hears from everyone complaints about the lack of leadership and poor strategy. And, here we are talking about Viktor Yushchenko's and the Orange Revolution's most ardent Western supporters!

Some commentators to this blog, such as Roman from Drohobych, have said that what is considered "weak" leadership in Ukraine would be considered enlightened, moderate leadership in a consolidated democracy. This is true only up to a point, as it fails to take into account personalities and, when we talk of leadership, we cannot ignore this factor.

I always compare Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych to President George W. Bush and contrast both of them to President Yushchenko. Yanukovych and Bush both know their limitations and accept advice and are not threatened by strong personalities. The Party of the Regions is the only Ukrainian parliamentary force who hired a U.S. public relations firm. Just look at the strong personalities around Bush (Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld).

Yushchenko is very different. As told to me by a presidential secretariat staffer in June over lunch, "Yushchenko feels he does not need to listen to advice because he has suffered enough for Ukraine." Is it little wonder that we have a country adrift with the president's party seven months after the elections still unable to decide whether it is in government or in opposition?

The common perception in Washington is one of poor leadership, a lack of political will and no strategy in place on the president's side. No one sees much strategy in the prime minister's office or the Party of the Regions either, but he does at least have leadership and will. On Wednesday I was interviewed by Myroslava Gongadze for Channel 5 and we were both amused at the Ukrayinska Pravda headline of President Yushchenko accusing Yanukovych of "usurping" power.

The lack of leadership is clearly visible in the Brussels NATO debate. It was disingenuous for President Yushchenko's staff and Our Ukraine to blame Prime Minister Yanukovych for "killing" a Membership Action Plan (MAP) in Brussels as it was already long dead.

Ukraine had a window of opportunity to be invited to a MAP this year if a pro-reform coalition and government had been quickly created following the elections. By June, when one was briefly created, it was already coming too late. Even a grand coalition of Our Ukraine holding the prime ministership and the Party of the Regions might have clinched it. But, not an Anti-Crisis Coalition with the Party of the Regions in charge, Yanukovych as prime minister and the Communists in government.

By July, Washington policy-makers were already ruling out Ukraine receiving a MAP. Personal conflicts between Our Ukraine's business wing, President Yushchenko, the first lady and Yulia Tymoshenko had, therefore, derailed Ukraine's hopes of a MAP - not Yanukovych's press remarks in Brussels. In other words, poor leadership and no strategy.

As Americans keep repeating to me, "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer." It is foolhardy, to say the least, to split a coalition only seven months before an election. Could not arguments wait until after the Orange forces had taken control of Parliament in March?

I was told recently by a British Ukrainian journalist how deep this personal conflict lies. Elle magazine's Russian-language version published a photo spread of Tymoshenko in the spring. Apparently, the first lady then rang the editors demanding that she also have the same offer. Elle agreed and gave her two pages. The competition as to who is to be "first lady" takes on interesting facets in Ukraine.

Ukraine's lack of leadership increasingly makes a poor comparison to Georgia. Georgia was upgraded by NATO to an Intensified Dialogue on Membership Issues at NATO's New York meeting - a stage that Ukraine achieved in April of last year. Georgia is increasingly being perceived as a country ahead of Ukraine in the NATO membership queue.

Georgia has a leader with political will, the Rose Revolution coalition remains united, there is no threat of a return of the ancien regime (including the Communists) and the battle against corruption has been praised by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). In addition, 70 percent of Georgians support NATO membership. In all four areas, Georgia looks better placed to move ahead on NATO membership than Ukraine, even though it has two unresolved conflicts on its territory.

President Mikheil Saakashvili is a popular person in the White House. So was President Yushchenko last April when he visited Washington, and I remember the warm enthusiasm and embrace he received during his various official functions. Today, the atmosphere is very different when U.S. officials talk of Ukraine.

As one policy-maker said at a private meeting I attended this week, "He had better be careful not to lose his friends who are getting to be exasperated about Ukraine's rudderless drift."

October 3

It proved not to be an easy task to watch a new documentary film on the Orange Revolution. This has been as difficult as obtaining articles and book chapters back from the publishers, which were written in earlier more optimistic times, with the publisher's words in red: "Please update." My optimistic texts on Ukraine written in 2005 and even early 2006 will have to be re-written, as Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych advises, because its time to move from "Euro-romanticism" to "Euro-pragmatism."

On Thursday of last week a Washington-based film company that had been working on a new Orange film for nearly two years invited a select group of film experts to its studios in Georgetown to critically discuss the pre-edit version. Besides me, only three others had some Ukrainian connection. One of these was Andriy Shevchenko, a former Channel 5 presenter who is now a deputy from the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc. Andriy, who was in Washington for a U.S.-Ukraine Policy Dialogue organized by the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation that is supported by the U.S. State Department, is interviewed in the film.

The film will undoubtedly become the best Western production on the Orange Revolution. The producers previously made a spectacularly good film on the Serbian revolution in 2000. Hopefully it will tour North America and Ukraine.

A key area of discussion after the film was whether to include events following the Orange Revolution. I recommended that, if you are covering the post-Orange Revolution era you will be chasing events (as we know from the summer, events can change fast and take us completely by surprise, as with the return of Yanukovych, which nobody expected). These events are too close. The film, I believe, should be about a specific important historical event - the Orange Revolution. Let another film deal with the post-Revolution era.

Although I attempted to put aside events since the Orange Revolution while watching the film this proved more difficult than I had imagined it would. Watching those historical events through the prism of the post-Orange Revolution era inevitably clouded what you saw on the screen. Watching Serhii Kivalov on November 24, 2004, declare Yanukovych duly elected, after the film documented widespread election fraud, made my stomach turn, knowing that he today heads the parliamentary Committee on Legal Issues.

After the film Shevchenko, I and some others joined the remainder of the group of Ukrainians in Washington for the U.S.-Ukraine Policy Dialogue. We met at a well-known Irish pub which on Thursdays hosts the Scythians, an Irish-Ukrainian band (http://www.scythianmusic.com/).

The Scythians will always get their audience to dance and sing along. But, in between joining in with the crowds, the Ukrainian contingent sat and discussed politics. And, this is where the atmosphere was more sober and less uplifting.

One issue that was raised, and is continually raised in talks and discussions I give or attend, is whether the Party of the Regions is a post-Kuchma new political force or merely Kuchma-revived?

The Party of the Regions is the only party in Parliament which hired a U.S. public relations film for the 2006 elections. One first bit of advice seems to have been to Yanukovych to switch from wearing his turtleneck under his jacket to a shirt and tie. The turtleneck sweater under the jacket became a sign of fashion with former President Leonid Kuchma and his allies, but it simply made them look like hoods.

Yanukovych now says that the Orange Revolution was a sign of how Ukrainians of all colors wanted change. But, can we really believe him and his opportunistic Party of the Regions?

In the Orange Revolution film we saw a Viktor Yushchenko who seemed to be dynamic in seeking to be elected president, believing that he needed to block the election of Yanukovych. Following the Orange Revolution, this dynamism seemed to have been displayed only in Yushchenko's international travel.

Perhaps I am, therefore, right to recommend to the film director to only deal with the Orange Revolution. As Shevchenko said during the post-screening discussion, the post-Orange era is "Part 2." We know how the Orange Revolution ("Part 1") ended, but we do not yet know how "Part 2" will end.

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