ANALYSIS: Behind Ukraine's political crisis (09/25/05)

ANALYSIS

Behind Ukraine's political crisis

by Taras Kuzio
Eurasia Daily Monitor

September 14-16

The removal of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's government on September 8 came as a surprise in Ukraine, as it had not been accused of corruption until days earlier. On September 5 the outgoing head of the presidential secretariat, Oleksander Zinchenko, had raised such accusations against close members of President Viktor Yushchenko's circle (Eurasia Daily Monitor, September 7 and 8).

Similar accusations were made a week earlier by Mikhail Brodsky, an adviser to Ms. Tymoshenko. Mr. Brodsky had been an opponent of Mr. Yushchenko's 1999-2001 government and had voted for its dismissal in April 2001 (Times, September 5).

Members of the outgoing government are angry that their reputations have been tarnished due to their association with those accused by Mr. Zinchenko. Ms. Tymoshenko could not understand how her government, which had fought against corruption, was now being removed (Ukrayinska Pravda, September 9).

Few Ukrainian citizens had felt the effects of the Ms. Tymoshenko government's battle against corruption. A poll of Kyivites found that 73.1 percent did not believe that corruption had declined (Dzerkalo Tyzhnia/Zerkalo Nedeli, September 10-16). Another poll found that only 31 percent of Ukrainians believed that the government had successfully battled corruption, with 59 percent disagreeing (UNIAN, September 9). The poll also found that Ukrainians did not credit the government with positive developments in inflation, job creation or re-privatization.

Accusations of corruption are common in Ukraine and other CIS states, often with little supporting evidence. But the reasons for the split between Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Yushchenko go far beyond the issue of corruption.

First, Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Yushchenko differ on how to address the legacy of former President Leonid Kuchma.

National-democratic forces split

Ukraine's national-democratic forces have split for a second time. In the early 1990s Rukh divided over whether to cooperate with the national communists, who are today's centrists. Now the national-democratic camp has divided over the issue of how to relate to the past. Ms. Tymoshenko seeks to prosecute high-ranking centrists in the former regime implicated in corruption, abuse of office, the murder of journalist Heorhii Gongadze and election fraud.

In contrast, Mr. Yushchenko seeks "stability and peace" and turning over a new leaf (Financial Times, September 9, 12). Members of the Gongadze family, in particular, remain pessimistic that the president has the necessary "political will" to find who ordered the murder (eng.imi.org.ua). Many suspect that Mr. Yushchenko promised Mr. Kuchma immunity during the December 2004 roundtable negotiations.

Acting Prime Minister Yurii Yekhanurov was head of the State Property Fund in 1994-1997 and opposes re-privatization. With this issue resolved, oligarchs may no longer feel threatened by the government and seek to cooperate with President Yushchenko.

Mr. Yushchenko's People's Union Our Ukraine party will now fight the 2006 parliamentary elections in alliance with centrists, the former backbone of the Mr. Kuchma regime, such as Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn's People's Party. Ms. Tymoshenko had opposed cooperating with centrists in the 2006 election.

A fundamental difference is that Mr. Yushchenko never felt comfortable in opposition, unlike Ms. Tymoshenko, and tends to seek compromise. During the Orange Revolution, for example, Mr. Yushchenko chose roundtable negotiations while Ms. Tymoshenko wanted to storm the presidential administration.

In contrast, Ms. Tymoshenko has considerable experience working in the opposition. She went into opposition in 1998 - four years ahead of Mr. Yushchenko and his business allies. After her government was removed last week, she immediately announced her readiness to go into opposition in the 2006 elections. She also intends to stand against Mr. Yushchenko in the 2009 presidential elections (Inter, September, Ukrayinska Pravda, September 13).

The Orange Revolution was bankrolled by businessmen who accompanied Mr. Yushchenko into opposition in 2001. The continued presence of these businessmen around Mr. Yushchenko, such as National Security and Defense Council Secretary Petro Poroshenko, reportedly worth $350 million, had led Ukrainians to wonder if politics really had changed. Mr. Kuchma had his oligarchs, and now Mr. Yushchenko has his own.

Differing ideologies

Second, Mr. Yushchenko and Ms. Tymoshenko embrace different ideologies. The Orange coalition was eclectic, including socialists, populists and reformers. Mr. Yushchenko's "liberal-right" views were opposed by Ms. Tymoshenko's "monopolistic left" policies (Zerkalo Nedeli/Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, September 10-16).

Although a populist at heart, Ms. Tymoshenko has not exhibited firm ideological beliefs in the past. She first entered politics within former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko's Hromada, the first dissident oligarch party, in the 1998 elections. After he fled abroad, Ms. Tymoshenko created her own Fatherland Party. Fatherland has no clear ideological position, and in 2002 it merged with the radical nationalist Conservative Republican Party led by Stepan Khmara. Two years later Fatherland merged with Brodsky's Yabloko Party, representing Russophone small and medium businessmen.

In the first year of Mr. Yushchenko's presidency Fatherland has attracted parties away from the People's Union-Our Ukraine coalition. These include Reforms and Order, led by former Economic Minister Viktor Pynzenyk and Yurii Kostenko's Ukrainian People's Party. Former First Vice Prime Minister Mykola Tomenko, a leading member of (R+O), has become a vocal critic of the Yushchenko administration and a proponent of an alliance between the R+O and Fatherland.

The Ukrainian Republican Party-Sobor and the United Ukraine parties are also expected to align themselves with Ms. Tymoshenko. Of the national democratic parties, only outgoing Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk's Rukh will support People's Union-Our Ukraine.

Mr. Zinchenko may now head the Pora Party, created out of the more pro-Western wing of the Pora youth movement, provided the politically ambitious head of Pora and Mr. Yushchenko adviser Vladyslav Kaskiv steps aside.

If correct, the 2006 elections could well see Pora, which played a key role in the Orange Revolution, joining Ms. Tymoshenko in the anti-Yushchenko camp (see pora.org.ua, September 10 for statement).

Change not delivered

The Orange Revolution and subsequent election of President Yushchenko showed that Ukrainian society wanted "change." But as the Economist (September 8) pointed out, the "Orange Revolution promised much but has so far delivered little."

Indeed, Ukrainians believe that, eight months into the Yushchenko presidency, there has been little genuine change from the Kuchma regime. Indeed, crimes committed by the Kuchma administration have gone unpunished. As one Razumkov Center analyst commented, "Ukraine gave Mr. Yushchenko a giant credit of faith, but now they want results" (AP, September 7).

One reason there have been no charges against high-ranking Kuchma-era officials is that the prosecutor's office is headed by Sviatoslav Piskun. Mr. Piskun was prosecutor in 2002-2003, fired, then reinstated on December 10, 2004, only two days after Parliament voted on the "compromise package" to permit a repeat presidential runoff on December 26, 2004, and constitutional reforms in 2005 or 2006.

Was Mr. Piskun brought back to protect high-ranking Kuchma officials? To date, only low-and medium-level Kuchma officials have been charged with abuse of office, corruption and election fraud.

Serhii Kivalov, head of the Central Election Commission (CEC) in the 2004 elections, provides a telling example. The Yushchenko camp directly accused the CEC of open falsification in the first and second rounds of the presidential election. But after the elections, Mr. Kivalov was allowed to return to his position as Dean of the Law Academy in Odesa. "As long as bandits are not punished, they remain examples for criminals of all types," warned Socialist leader Oleksander Moroz (Ukrayinska Pravda, September 5).

A commission is set to investigate the charges of corruption in Mr. Yushchenko's entourage leveled by the Presidential secretariat's former chief, Mr. Zinchenko (see EDM, September 8, 9). Guilty or not, the commission poses a no-win situation for Mr. Yushchenko.

If the commission exonerates the three accused officials, the public disillusionment that the new guard is little different from the old will likely deepen, increasing ousted Prime Minister Tymoshenko's popularity in the 2006 elections. Already 51.3 percent of Kyivites, a city that staunchly backed Mr. Yushchenko in the Orange Revolution, believe the accusations made by Mr. Zinchenko (Dzerkalo Tyzhnia/Zerkalo Nedeli, September 10-16).

Mr. Yushchenko has already been criticized for pre-judging the outcome of the investigation. While welcoming the creation of the commission, President Yushchenko declared, "I am confident that these facts will not be found" (Derkalo Tyzhnia/Zerkalo Nedeli, September 10-16). In post-Soviet states, officials may take such presidential comments as hints on the preferred verdict.

If the commission does find evidence of corruption among Mr. Yushchenko's close allies, it would irrevocably damage his presidency. He would have to explain why he has tolerated corruption within his inner circle.

Another Yushchenko judgment error was the granting of additional power to the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), headed by one of the accused, Mr. Poroshenko. Not only was the move unconstitutional, it caused a paralysis of decision-making and in-fighting as Mr. Poroshenko turned the NSDC into a parallel government.

Disillusionment with President Yushchenko is especially acute among young people, without whom the Orange Revolution would have been impossible. Younger generation politicians from the Reforms and Order Party (R+O), and young people more generally, are likely to gravitate toward Ms. Tymoshenko in the 2006 elections. R & O was Mr. Yushchenko's main political ally in the 1990s, and its defection to Ms. Tymoshenko is a potentially damaging outcome of the Zinchenko crisis.

Consequences of the sacking

President Yushchenko's decision to remove the Tymoshenko government has four main consequences.

First, with constitutional reforms that transfer some of the executive's power to Parliament due to go into effect in January 2006, Mr. Yushchenko must secure a parliamentary majority after the 2006 elections, as the legislature elects the government.

Mr. Yushchenko had intended to ask the Constitutional Court to annul the constitutional reforms this fall. Ironically, his case would have been strengthened had Ms. Tymoshenko also opposed their implementation. But now Mr. Yushchenko must rely on centrist forces, which are strong supporters of the constitutional reforms.

It would be politically disastrous if constitutional reforms left Mr. Yushchenko a figurehead facing a hostile parliamentary majority and government. This scenario would return Ukraine to the executive-legislative conflicts of the 1990s and damage progress on reforms.
Second, Mr. Yushchenko's People's Union-Our Ukraine party now polls at only 18 percent, while Ms. Tymoshenko's bloc draws 11.3 percent (Ukrayinska Pravda, September 9). To secure Mr. Yekhanurov's confirmation as prime minister now and to establish a parliamentary majority and government after the 2006 elections Mr. Yushchenko will be forced to align himself with former pro-Kuchma centrists in Parliament.
Third, after breaking with Mr. Yushchenko, Ms. Tymoshenko will now draw votes away from the hard-line opposition currently grouped in Regions of Ukraine (RU), the Social Democratic Party - United (SDPU), and the Communists (CPU). All three are led by uncharismatic, unpopular leaders. In contrast, Ms. Tymoshenko has great media appeal, skill as a fiery orator, and popularity that matches Mr. Yushchenko's.
Fourth, Mr. Yushchenko and Ms. Tymoshenko are now expected to publicly duel over who has the right to claim to represent the "true ideals" of the Orange Revolution. Ms. Tymoshenko's bloc will campaign to separate business and politics, one of the main goals of the Revolution (Ukrayinska Pravda, September 8).

Mr. Yushchenko still surrounds himself with businessmen who supported his Our Ukraine bloc in the 2002 parliamentary elections and his presidential campaign. Their ties will be strengthened further if, as expected, the commission exonerates his close allies of corruption.

As the 2006 ballot approaches, the Tymoshenko camp will campaign on a platform asserting that the Orange Revolution is "unfinished." Ukraine needs to "commence preparations for another stage of the revolution," former Vice Prime Minister Tomenko argues, "as he [Yushchenko] has not used the chance that history and the revolution gave to him" (Kommersant, September 9).

The 2004 presidential election was a struggle between the Kuchma regime's last prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, and the Orange democratic alternative, Mr. Yushchenko. This battle sidelined the Communists, who had been the main opposition force in the 1990s. Now both the Communists and the centrists stand to be marginalized in the 2006 elections, which are shaping up to be a contest between two wings of the Orange Revolution: those of Mr. Yushchenko and Ms. Tymoshenko.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is visiting professor at the Elliot School of International Affairs, George Washington University. The article above, which originally appeared in The Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor, is reprinted here with permission from the foundation (www.jamestown.org).

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