ANALYSIS: Is Ukraine's minister of defense in line to become transitional strongman? (01/25/04)

ANALYSIS

Is Ukraine's minister of defense in line to become transitional strongman?

by Taras Kuzio
RFE/RL Newsline

Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk plans to run in Ukraine's presidential election in October, Ukrayinska Pravda reported on January 6, citing fellow opposition newspaper Postup, which claimed it was leaked this information by senior officers of the Ministry of Defense.

As a presidential candidate, Marchuk could serve to ally outgoing President Leonid Kuchma's and oligarchs' fears regarding their fate in the post-Kuchma era. Marchuk, who is seen by Western governments and international organizations as pro-Western and pro-NATO, would also have a better image than leading pro-Kuchma politicians, such as Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who hails from the pro-Russian Donbas and is tied to Ukraine's wealthiest oligarch, Renat Akhmetov.

Mr. Marchuk's career has spanned Ukraine's entire post-Soviet history. In 1991-1994 he was chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine (known by its Ukrainian acronym, SBU), a position he inherited because of his long background in Soviet Ukraine's KGB. Mr. Marchuk was prime minister in 1995-1996, but was sacked after falling afoul of President Kuchma.

In the 1998 parliamentary elections, Mr. Marchuk was among the first five candidates on the Social Democratic Party United (SDPU) list, alongside former President Leonid Kravchuk and party leader Viktor Medvedchuk. It was not until the following year's presidential election that the SDPU aligned with Mr. Kuchma.

During the 1999 presidential elections, Mr. Marchuk played a spoiler role, similar to that played by the late Gen. Aleksandr Lebed in the 1996 Russian presidential ballot. Mr. Marchuk's rhetoric, political niche and allies were similar to those later espoused by populist nationalist Yulia Tymoshenko, first in the National Salvation Front and then in the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.

Mr. Marchuk was co-opted in the second round of the 1999 elections and named secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), a position he held until 2003. In this position he was not trusted by Mr. Kuchma, and because of this Mr. Kuchma did not permit the NSDC to play the same kind of significant role in Ukrainian politics and security affairs that it had under Mr. Kuchma's trusted ally, Volodymyr Horbulin, in 1995-1999.

The reasons for President Kuchma's distrust were twofold. First, Mr. Marchuk's anti-Kuchma rhetoric in the 1999 elections was as radical as that emanating from Ukraine's most radical oppositionist, Ms. Tymoshenko. Second, a conflict emerged between Mr. Marchuk and the clan of Leonid Derkach, who headed the SBU in 1997-2001. Mr. Dekach's son Andrei is a leading businessman in the Dnipropetrovsk-based Labor Ukraine clan. As secretary of the NSDC, Mr. Marchuk accused the Derkaches of involvement in the illegal-arms trade.

Mr. Marchuk represented an "opposition" wing within the SBU to the officers grouped around Mr. Derkach until Mr. Derkach was forced to resign during the height of the Kuchmagate scandal in February 2001. It is this role that has led some Western observers and some members of the Ukrainian ruling elite to suspect that Mr. Marchuk either knew of but did nothing, or directed through intermediaries, the bugging of President Kuchma's office in 1999-2000 by presidential security officer Mykola Melnychenko.

Like his predecessor at the NSDC, Mr. Marchuk has always been a staunch advocate of Ukraine's membership of NATO. As vice prime minister in charge of national security in 1994-1995, he earned a reputation in Moscow of being a tough operator vis-à-vis Crimean separatists and with Russia in negotiations over the Black Sea Fleet. The NSDC's decision in May 2002 to announce publicly Ukraine's goal of NATO membership was Mr. Marchuk's initiative.

There are a handful of scenarios that could explain why Mr. Marchuk would seek the presidency this year. First, his candidacy could be a sign of desperation by the authorities because they have failed to find a neutral candidate who can stand above Ukraine's three main clans and is popular enough to win the elections. President Kuchma's distrust of Mr. Marchuk might be less significant now than the latter's potential usefulness in Ukraine's transition to the post-Kuchma era. It is in the interests of the presidential administration head, Mr. Medvedchuk to convince President Kuchma of Mr. Marchuk's newfound usefulness.

The pro-presidential parliamentary majority will be focusing its efforts on adopting constitutional changes before the elections. Mr. Marchuk has privately stated that an unspecified "radical step" will be taken in March. Mr. Marchuk could either be the authorities' sole neutral candidate, or he could run alongside a second candidate, Prime Minister Yanukovych. The SDPU would not view as a positive step the election as president of either Mr. Yanukovych or popular reformer Viktor Yushchenko.

Second, constitutional changes might be adopted that provide for presidential elections this year, but for Parliament to elect future presidents after a new legislature is elected in 2006. These are the constitutional changes favored by the Communists, whose 59 votes are needed by the pro-presidential majority to effect the changes.

Any president elected this year, therefore, would automatically become a transitional president whose term in office would last only from November 2004 to March 2006. Mr. Marchuk could be positioning himself as a potential interim president who would take Ukraine into the post-Kuchma era until a new president is elected by Parliament. This role would seek to assuage fears by President Kuchma and his oligarchic allies (particularly Mr. Medvedchuk) of their possible fate if Mr. Yushchenko were to win the election without constitutional changes, in which case he would inherit President Kuchma's extensive range of powers.

Third, given that Mr. Marchuk would have little possibility of winning the election, he could play the role of a "spoiler" candidate and take votes from others. In the 1999 elections Marchuk took votes from Socialist leader Oleksander Moroz that deprived the latter of the chance to enter the second round, where Mr. Kuchma - had he faced Mr. Moroz rather than Communist leader Petro Symonenko - might have lost.

Mr. Marchuk's pro-NATO orientation would be beneficial to the authorities insofar as the West would perceive him as less of a stark alternative to Mr. Yushchenko. In addition, as defense minister and through his links to the SBU, Marchuk would attract the votes of the one million voters in the various security forces, as well as again take votes from the Socialists and the Tymoshenko Bloc. And in a second round, Mr. Marchuk would be in a position to transfer his support to another candidate from the authorities, just as he did in the 1999 elections.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is a resident fellow at the Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Toronto.

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