The Trick To Understanding Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine has held its first elections after the Orange Revolution. Without any qualification, they were free and fair with a high participation of 67 percent, showing that Ukraine has matured as a democracy.

Yulia Tymoshenko, the "orange revolution" heroine who came in second place in Ukraine's key parliamentary election, listens to journalists' questions in Kiev.
At the same time, Ukraine has become a parliamentary system, which will reinforce democracy in the country. The Communists have been further marginalized, and party consolidation has proceeded well, with only five parties likely to make it into parliament.

The main results of the vote reflect an amazing constancy. In December 2004, Viktor Yushchenko defeated Viktor Yanukovych with a margin of 8 percentage points, which will probably be the balance between the orange and blue, or more accurately western and eastern, coalitions. The geographic dividing line runs exactly where it did in 2004, or where it has gone for most of the last 300 years.

International media have focused on Yanukovych's Party of the Regions becoming the largest single party, but what matters in proportional elections is which parties can form a ruling majority, and that is the Orange coalition.

The surprise is what happened within the Orange coalition, with Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc trouncing Yushchenko's Our Ukraine. It is easy to understand why that happened. Our Ukraine ran an inept campaign and put its least popular representatives, such as discredited businessman Petro Poroshenko, in the spotlight, while the president and his prime minister, Yury Yekhanurov, kept a low profile.

Tymoshenko is an outstanding campaigner, and she seems to have chosen the right political themes as well. Her main slogan was "justice," reflecting Yushchenko's unfulfilled promise from 2004: "Bandits to prison!" Once again, revenge against the old regime became the dominant line.

Her victory over Our Ukraine elevates moral issues over economic policy, and her rhetoric looks backward to the Orange Revolution, further cementing the east-west divide.

She also defeated Pora-PRP, the new liberal bloc, which tried to offer a decent alternative to Orange voters appalled by both populism and corruption.

Since the campaign became a rehashing of the Orange Revolution, nothing but an Orange coalition appears natural, that is, Tymoshenko's bloc, Our Ukraine and the Socialist Party. The Lytvyn Popular bloc will not enter parliament. Today, nobody but Tymoshenko appears the natural prime minister. The job is hers to lose.

All three potential coalition partners have already started to hold talks on the formation of a new government, and one influential Our Ukraine deputy predicted that an Orange coalition government would be formed within two to three weeks. The uncertainty about the nature of the next government has diminished.

The big question is what policy a Prime Minister Tymoshenko would pursue. As deputy prime minister for energy in 2000, she surprised us positively by going after other oligarchs and cleaning up the energy sector.

As prime minister last year, by contrast, she surprised us negatively by focusing on re-privatization, which had not been part of her government program. Now she has received a greater popular mandate than ever before, so we can only wonder how she will amaze us this time.

The natural starting point is her bloc's pre-election program. Even by the standards of such documents, it is stunningly diffuse. The most substantial part is the section on "just power." It declares that under a Tymoshenko-led government, judicial immunity for politicians would be immediately abolished, regional governors would be elected and local self-government would be strengthened.

Tymoshenko calls her economic credo "solidarism," referring to a century-old socialist creed, but its meaning remains fuzzy. Her section on economic policy is small and empty.

In a populist vein, it states that enterprises as well as people "will pay taxes without any coercion." Just in case, the value-added tax is to be abolished as well. Fortunately, the social section is suitably vague. The time of expensive social benefit promises appears over.

Most important, re-privatization is not mentioned, though nor are property rights guaranteed. After she was ousted as prime minister in September, Tymoshenko declared that she had never advocated re-privatization, which is not necessarily true but definitely helpful.

She is not likely to put herself in the same bind once again. Moreover, Our Ukraine cannot possibly join a coalition with her without her giving credible guarantees not to launch another re-privatization campaign.

One of Tymoshenko's most successful campaign themes was her persistent attacks on the Russian-Ukrainian gas deal of Jan. 4, which will undoubtedly be undone. RosUkrEnergo has never been accepted by the Ukrainian public, and the existence of six attachments to the January agreement, purportedly giving away Ukraine's pipelines and gas reservoirs to RosUkrEnergo, appears unacceptable to just about any Ukrainian.

Early Russian comments have emphasized the relative victory of the Party of the Regions, but the Kremlin leaders will probably be all the more upset when they realize that a new Orange coalition under Tymoshenko is budding.

The Kremlin reaction is likely to be all the greater if Tymoshenko sticks to her election promise to break the gas agreement with Russia and render RosUkrEnergo transparent. Though you never know with Yulia. On Ekho Moskvy last September, she congratulated the Russians upon their "wonderful" president.

Regardless of the exact train of events, Ukraine is a democracy, while Russia is not. Therefore, the Kremlin finds it difficult to understand Ukraine. Whatever the Ukrainian leaders do to satisfy one constituency or another is incomprehensible to authoritarians, and if some Ukrainian action does not suit the Kremlin, it will be perceived as dictated by Washington and criticized accordingly.

Such Russian rhetoric can do nothing but drive Ukraine into the arms of the West, and as the European Union is not open, Ukraine will have to run all the faster toward NATO, not because of Western overtures, but because of Russian intimidation.

Source: The Moscow Times