IN THE PRESS: Commentaries on development in post-Orange Revolution Ukraine (10/16/05)

IN THE PRESS

Commentaries on development in post-Orange Revolution Ukraine

Tetyana Soroka, writing in the September 28 issue of Ukrayinska Pravda (as translated for The Ukraine List by Nykolai Bilaniuk):

The first anniversary of the Orange Revolution is approaching. It was an unforgettable time that changed the Ukrainian people once and for all time. ... We will never be the way we were before, and precisely because of that we are entitled to demand from the government continuing change for the better.

... what did the maidan mean to me personally?

... we, my friends and my family, chose our fate and our path. We chose a country, in which our children will grow up. We went into the streets in defense of the truth. We chose leaders who will represent our people with dignity before the world community, and will become for us symbols of our new and better life. We chose a leader who, we believed, was worthy of being nothing less than our national leader.

We did not choose a god with a painted-on halo, who would suddenly change the words "dear friends" into a false familiarity with any and everybody, degrading phrases and a superior attitude. We did not choose a clique of hypocrites with boundless ambitions. We did not choose corrupt fat cats, or wretched liars, or shameless bureaucrats for sale.

Thank God, we came home from the revolution alive and healthy.

However, Mr. Yushchenko, please remember every single day that in the days of the revolution your ascent to power depended on us gambling our lives. We were ready to die in battle against lies and injustice, in battle for a better future.

Are you up to the task, not for your own benefit, but for my benefit and for my son who is still young?

Commentary by Andrew Osborn, "Democracy in Ukraine: The Bitter Taste of the Orange Revolution," in the September 28 issue of The Independent Online Edition:

The Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko will be feted by the queen in London next month and lauded by Cherie Blair for his role in last year's "Orange Revolution," which ended a decade of Soviet-style authoritarianism.

The Royal Institute of International Affairs has decided to make him the first recipient of its prestigious Chatham House Prize, an honor bestowed on "the individual deemed to have made the most significant contribution to the improvement of international relations in the previous year."

The veteran Ukrainian politician has become accustomed to international plaudits ...

Few leaders of former Soviet republics get the chance to address the U.S. Congress or receive the rapturous reception which he did. Fewer still find themselves in the running for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. However, Mr. Yushchenko appears to be falling victim to a phenomenon which plagued a past winner of the Peace Prize, Mikhail Gorbachev. He was admired in the West for his role in peacefully bringing about an end to Communism but despised at home.

Mr. Yushchenko is sliding ever closer to the same paradox. Respected abroad, many are already accusing him of betraying the ideals of the Orange Revolution he fathered. His critics allege that he has become so dazzled by international praise that he has taken his eye off the ball and presided over the replacement of one corrupt elite with another.

That he has broken his revolutionary promises, befriended the very people he railed against during the revolution, failed to stamp out corruption nationally, let alone among his own inner circle, and not made a sufficient break with the discredited methods of his Soviet-era predecessor Leonid Kuchma. His critics' message is stark: the revolution has not delivered on its early promise and shows no signs of doing so. ...

Adrian Karatnycky, writing on foreignaffairs.org, September 28:

... Yushchenko's actions are best understood not as a retreat from reform but rather as an effort to put the country back on the original path of last fall's Orange Revolution.

Many people lay claim to the legacy of Ukraine's non-violent civic struggle, but there is little doubt that the Orange Revolution was about three things: democracy, transparency and an economy based on competition. Indeed, one of the leading organized forces advocating change last winter, the Pora youth movement, consisted of thousands of young activists driven by a belief in liberal politics and free-market principles.

In keeping with this spirit, the recent government reshuffling reflected Yushchenko's frustration with a stalemate in his coalition government that had produced a rudderless economic policy, part statist, part liberal. ...

Some might argue that the political upheaval in Ukraine is a sign of disarray and instability. But nothing could be further from the truth. Yushchenko's appointment of the pro-EU Oleh Rybachuk as chief of staff and of the capable and steady [Yurii] Yekhanurov as prime minister should reassure Ukraine's entrepreneurial classes and the international business community.

At the same time, his decision to remove several aides accused of corruption - or at the very least tainted by perceptions of conflicts of interests - is likely to win wide support among Ukraine's citizens. ..

No matter how events play out in Kiev [sic]..., one thing is certain. The fact that Ukraine's people will in the end decide their own future is a testimony to the durability of last fall's non-violent people-power struggle.

Commentary by Serhii Rakhmanin in the September 24-30 issue of Zerkalo Nedeli:

... Too early were the people lulled by promises. Too soon was the nascent democracy hypnotized into lethargy. Too late did many of us wake up. Too painful was it to realize that we missed a unique chance. And it lets all of us down to admit that our long-cherished dream - to wake up in a normal country one sunny day - will remain a dream for years to come.

But very soon Ukraine may turn into what the former president wanted to see, because the ideas and ideals of maidan [Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, in Kyiv - site of mass protests during the Orange Revolution] were betrayed before Yushchenko signed a pact with [Viktor] Yanukovych, and before he sacked the Tymoshenko government.

The president's latest steps only formalized the betrayal. They finally proved the impotence of the new political regime and its inability and unwillingness to fulfill its historical mission of building a new system of government based on entirely different values.

All Yushchenko had to do was abide by the law and at least try to keep his own promises. One of the promises was that politics would no longer be synonymous with "bargaining" and that politicians would never be sellers, buyers, or go-betweens.

Yushchenko broke his oath, "for the sake of Ukraine's future," as he explained. But does this country have a future if it has plunged back into the dark past and turned into a marketplace where musty, second-hand political merchandise is sold for MPs' [national deputies'] votes and the people's dignity? ...

I am sorry for this man. But there is no place for him on my maidan. ...

September 22 editorial in the Economist:

... On September 20, Yurii Yekhanurov - Mr. Yushchenko's proposed replacement for Yulia Tymoshenko, the prime minister whom he sacked, along with her Cabinet, on September 8 - was narrowly rejected by Parliament. ...

After a meeting with parliamentary leaders, Mr. Yushchenko riskily, but successfully, submitted his candidate to another ballot. He may have bought extra votes by bargaining over the new Cabinet, and over a constitutional reform that would shift some power from the president to Parliament next year. He was sounding skeptical over that change last week, but most other parties want it.

Even though he got his way, he has been forced into humbling political courtships. Dealing with Viktor Yanukovych, an ungracious loser in last year's presidential race, would till recently have seemed absurd - except in Ukraine's shape-shifting political culture. ...

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