COMMENTARY: Looking ahead to 2009 as Ukraine marks second Orange anniversary (12/03/06)

COMMENTARY

Looking ahead to 2009 as Ukraine marks second Orange anniversary

by Taras Kuzio

A year ago, there was still a great deal of optimism in Washington and other Western capitals that, in the aftermath of the Orange Revolution, Ukraine would be able to consolidate its democratic gains. On the second anniversary of the Orange Revolution, this optimism has now been replaced by a greater degree of realism and, in some quarters, pessimism.

Was it our optimism that was misplaced, or did Ukraine's Orange leaders fail their voters and the one in five Ukrainians who participated in the Orange Revolution? Indeed, has Viktor Yushchenko "betrayed" the Orange Revolution, as some of his own supporters now claim?

Revolutions are notorious in leading to unfulfilled expectations. And Ukraine is no exception here. Orange politicians and revolutionaries never had a unified view of what policies they wished to see implemented after Mr. Yushchenko came to power.

The Orange coalition has been bitterly divided over its attitudes to work dealing with the past. The Yulia Tymoshenko bloc and youth NGOs, such as Pora (It's Time), strongly backed calls to implement the Orange Revolution campaign promise "bandits to prison."

President Yushchenko and his party, Our Ukraine, have not moved on steps to criminally charge senior officials from the Kuchma regime for election fraud, abuse of office and corruption. Investigations into the two most notorious cases, the murder of journalist Heorhii Gongadze and the poisoning of Mr. Yushchenko, have stalled or led only to low-level arrests. Opinion polls show that Ukrainians again feel that the rule of law does not apply to their ruling elites.

Besides a fractured policy agenda, the Orange coalition was notoriously broad-ranging, from Socialists, to free market capitalists, to nationalists. This enabled a large coalition to be formed that could protest election fraud. But, once the Orange Revolution was over, that coalition proved unable to remain united and disintegrated after only nine months in office.

Mr. Yushchenko's election was a victory for democratic forces but never became a knock-out blow to the ancien regime, unlike in Georgia where Mikheil Saakashvili was elected president with 96 percent of the vote. The split in the Orange camp became permanent following this summer's crisis that saw the surprise return of Viktor Yanukovych to head the government. Mr. Yanukovych and the Party of the Regions obtained 44 and 32 percent of the vote in 2004 and 2006 respectively, showing that this political force had a large popular base.

On the second anniversary of the Orange Revolution, Ukraine is at a crossroads and faces two strategic questions.

First, will the Party of the Regions transform itself into a democratic, post-oligarch party? The answers to this question are either pessimistic (as best represented by the Tymoshenko bloc), agnostic ("let's wait and see") or optimistic ("they are already evolving"). Precedents do exist in Eastern Europe for the transition from oligarchs to law-abiding businessmen, but those countries had an external stimulant: the offer of membership in the European Union.

Second, is the Orange Revolution reversible, following the return of Mr. Yanukovych to head the government? Here responses are more optimistic. The Party of the Regions (PRU), while controlling the largest parliamentary faction and government, is not in a position of exercising monopoly power to be able to return Ukraine to the authoritarian era of Leonid Kuchma.

Ukraine's regionalism mitigates against the dominance of one ruling party and the imposition of an autocratic regime, making Ukraine different from Russia. The PRU's 32 percent victory in the 2006 elections will not permit the party to monopolize power or reverse the Orange Revolution.

Ukraine's post-Soviet transition was marked by frequently changing governments which lasted on average only 12 months. The last government to be dismissed in such a manner was the Tymoshenko government in 2005.

Following constitutional reforms in 2006, the president no longer has the right to dismiss the government, which is now responsible to the parliamentary coalition. The Yanukovych government, therefore, is likely to remain in place until the October 2009 elections.

The 2009 presidential elections will be fought by three well-known candidates, Mr. Yanukovych, Ms. Tymoshenko and incumbent Mr. Yushchenko. Current polls point to the second-round contest being fought by Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Yanukovych, Ukraine's two most popular politicians.

In 2009 Ukraine may face a repeat of the 2004 elections between the Orange and Blue forces with Mr. Yanukovych again launching his candidacy from the position of prime minister. But, on this occasion, Mr. Yanukovych will have a stronger launching pad as the position of prime minister has been enhanced following constitutional reforms.

The 2009 elections are likely to again be a contest between Blue and Orange forces. As prime minister for three years and having a popular base of support, Mr. Yanukovych will be guaranteed to enter the second round.

The former Orange Revolution coalition will enter the 2009 elections divided between Mr. Yushchenko and Ms. Tymoshenko, one of whom will go through to the second round. Mr. Yanukovych could well do in 2009 what he never attempted to undertake in 2004, namely, win a free election.

Only two years into his presidency, Mr. Yushchenko increasingly resembles a lame duck president. He never listens to advice, allows personal conflicts to unduly influence his views, has adopted a disastrous personnel policy and not shown leadership or a devised strategy.

Mr. Yushchenko's greatest weaknesses have been his lack of charisma and concomitant inability to stay in touch with core Orange voters, coupled with an inability to exercise power. Ongoing discussions over revising constitutional reforms ignore the fact that Mr. Yushchenko has neither exercised power last year under the Constitution that gave more power to the president, or this year, under the revised Constitution that enhances parliamentary authority.

But, it is Mr. Yushchenko's over-arching perception of being weak that has drained support away from him to Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Yanukovych, making it look impossible for him to win a second term. Mr. Yushchenko's Our Ukraine ignores the demands of its honorary chairman, oligarchs no longer fear him, and former "bandits" return home no longer afraid of the Orange Revolution slogan "bandits to prison! " that led them to flee Ukraine last year.

One enduring legacy of the Orange Revolution could well be that Ukraine holds free and fair presidential elections in 2009, as it did in March to Parliament. The Party of the Regions won this year's elections and Mr. Yanukovych could well go on to win the presidency. This prize may force Mr. Yanukovych to modify his image to reach out beyond his Donetsk home base, even if only in a Potemkin manner.

Only Ms. Tymoshenko, the head of the opposition, has the ability to block Mr. Yanukovych's drive to replace President Yushchenko by undertaking what he failed to achieve in 2004. However, she will have the formidable task of combining the positions of aggressive opposition leader with centrist presidential candidate that will enable her to reach out beyond her core Orange voters in western-central Ukraine. One reason Mr. Yushchenko won in 2004 was that one section of the ruling elites were more afraid of Mr. Yanukovych than of him. Ukraine's elites would seem to uniformly fear Ms. Tymoshenko, even though this fear maybe misplaced.

The 2006 elections showed the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc as the only political force that possessed nationwide support. Mr. Yanukovych, on the other hand, will find it difficult to compete with Tymoshenko in central Ukraine, while finding it impossible to penetrate western Ukraine.

The narrowing of Ukraine's political future to the Party of the Regions and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc also seems to be taking place inside the Verkhovna Rada. Three of the five political forces are in deep crises, although only the democratic force (Our Ukraine) admits to this. The Socialists and Communists are unlikely to enter the next Parliament. Our Ukraine could be eclipsed by a new center-right political force.

On Ukraine's second Orange anniversary, Ukraine's political situation and hope for reforms and Euro-Atlantic integration could be negatively influenced by stagnation or the preservation of the status quo. The presidency is in crisis in its second year - a feature normally associated only with the latter stages of a president's second term in office (not the first stages of his first term). In Parliament's first year in power, of the five political forces in Parliament three are in crisis and have little support outside.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is a senior fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States, and adjunct professor, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University.

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