The Ukrainian World According to Kudelia (and CERES)
January 29, 2010 – 9:28 am
Serhiy Kudelia, a Jacyk Visiting Scholar from Ukraine in the Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine at CERES (Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies) at the University of Toronto, is on a mission. That mission is to use any forum he has access to unashamedly attack Yulia Tymoshnko’s candidacy in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential elections.
The main forum Kudelia has used is the ‘Ukraine’s 2010 Election Watch’ at the Jacyk Program where of the five bloggers his represent three quarters of the entries. Kudelia’s Yuliaphobia came to prominence during a panel held on the upcoming elections at the Canadian-Ukrainian Art Foundation in October 2009 where he was one of four speakers.
Writing in his Jacyk Program blogs Kudelia does not even attempt to show any objectivity in his coverage of the elections painting Tymoshenko as the arch villain. His latest blog (19 January) on the first round results, for example, talks of a ‘predictable’ first place by Viktor Yanukovych and ‘surprisingly solid showing of the “next generation” politicians in third and fourth place’ (Serhiy Tihipko and Arseniy Yatseniuk).
When Tymoshenko is mentioned it is in a disparaging manner as somebody who did not receive many votes. In reality a second place showing of 25% is a very good result considering two factors. Firstly, the fracturing of the former orange camp into six candidates that heavily divided the “orange” vote, something that Yanukovych was not faced with. Secondly, Tymoshenko is the first candidate to seek election as president from the difficult position of sitting prime minister – in 1994 and 2004 former prime ministers who had become opposition leaders were elected. To crown this, Tymoshenko is a sitting prime minister during the worst economic crisis for even decades.
Why then is her first round result not considered by Kudelia as a good one?
Kudelia repeats President Viktor Yushchenko’s arguments when he claims that the main threat to democracy in Ukraine is Tymoshenko – not Yanukovych. This canard is used to claim that she would, if elected, adopt the ‘Putin model’, using the law ‘as a selective weapon to subdue the critics and punish those who refuse to fall in line’ (8 December blog). Yanukovych, in Kudelia’s eyes, ‘is no longer viewed among Western Ukrainian voters as an existential threat to Ukraine’ and Western Ukraine will accept him as president in the same way as they did Kuchma in 1994 (4 November blog). This claim bears no relationship to reality in western-central Ukraine where again a large group of Tihipko, Yatseniuk and Yushchenko voters will be voting negatively against Yanukovych in the second round
Kudelia never feels the need to explain why the ‘Putin model’ would be impossible to implement in Ukraine for a large number of reasons as his Yuliaphobia blinds him to these realities. Putinism is built on anti-Western Russian nationalism that has broad appeal in Russian society. Where is such a nationalism to emerge from in Ukraine? Russia adopted a super presidential constitution in 1993 and Ukraine a semi-parliamentary constitution in 2006. How can Ukraine’s parliamentarism be transformed into an autocracy? Most importantly, how could any political force could overcome Ukraine’s regional diversity and obtain a monopoly of power and does he really believe that a president in Ukraine could be elected with the same landslide vote as in Georgia or Russia?
Kudelia revives the canard of re-nationalisation which was raised by the 2005 Tymoshenko government but has never been raised by her government since December 2007. He also warns of the threat that Tymoshenko would ‘kick big business out of politics’ in the same way that Putin did. What Kudelia ignores is the total failure of the Yushchenko term in office to separate big business and politics and the continued domination of politics by them. Yushchenko neither implemented ‘Bandits to Jail’ (for some reason Kudelia does not describe this Maidan slogan as a ‘Putin policy’) or an amnesty. Of the two candidates in the second round only Tymoshenko if elected could separate big business and politics as a Yanukovych victory would cement the domination of Ukraine by oligarchs.
As Kudelia is forced to admit, Ukraine’s oligarchs thrived under Yushchenko where they ‘secured most of their assets’. His pro-Yushchenko bias is again in evidence when he writes that both the Tymoshenko and Yanukovych governments provided oligarchs with state support while the ‘president became almost irrelevant for the distribution of rents and business deals’ (11 December blog).
Kudelia’s analysis ignores the cozy relationship of the 2005-2006 Yekhanurov government with the ‘national bourgeoisie’, as the prime minister described the oligarchs, in the only pro-Yushchenko government of the four to serve under Yushchenko. This pro-oligarch government is for some reason ignored by Kudelia. Kudelia ignores the close relationship between the president and the opaque gas intermediary RosUkrEnergo (i.e. Dmytro Firtash) included by Yekhanurov in the January 2006 gas contract, the close relationship between chief of staff Viktor Baloga and the Party of Regions (Baloga is Yanukovych’s campaign organizer in Trans-Carpathia in the 2010 elections where he used administrative resources to ensure Yanukovych’s first place in the oblast in the first round, the only West Ukrainian region which Yanukovych won) and the funding of Our Ukraine’s 2006 and 2007 election campaign by the most odious (in terms of unrepentant non-transformed oligarch) of Ukraine’s oligarchs, Igor Kolomoysky.
Kudelia complains at Tymoshenko’s threat to fulfill the 2004 Maidan pledges of putting ‘criminals in jails’ by appointing an honest Prosecutor-General. It would seem that nothing can be done correctly by Ukrainian politicians: when they don’t fulfill the Maidan’s pledges (i.e. Yushchenko) they are criticised and when they promise to do so (i.e. Tymoshenko) they are also criticised. Kudelia ignores the complete lack of reform under Yushchenko of the prosecutors office as seen by the appointment of two throw backs to the Kuchma era, Prosecutor-Generals Sviatoslav Piskkun and Oleksandr Medvedko, the former a Party of Regions deputy and the latter with close ties to them.
Kudelia’s pro-Yushchenko bias also emerges in his treatment of former chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk who is widely seen as the architect of constitutional reform under Kuchma. Kudelia is critical of Medvedchuk’s December 2009 article where he backtracks from supporting parliamentarism but Kudelia ignores the fact that Yushchenko has clamoured for two years to return to a presidential system and that he also supports the same constitutional reforms as Medvedchuk – the very same ones Kudelia dislikes. Yushchenko was the only Ukrainian president to serve under two constitutions. Kudelia ignores the fact that most candidates campaigned in the 2010 elections in support of a presidential constitution: Yushchenko, Anatoliy Grytsenko, and the two ‘alternative, new face’ candidates Arseniy Yatseniuk and Serhiy Tihipko whose slogan was ‘Strong President, Strong Country!’
Could Kudelia explain why he only criticizes Medvedchuk’s and Tymoshenko’s policies as leading to authoritarianism but not other politicians who also seek a return to the same presidentialism? Why is Medvedchuk’s recipe for constitutional reform back to presidentialism ‘a return to competitive authoritarian regime of the Kuchma era’ but Yushchenko’s proposal to follow the same path ignored?
A final note on this question: Kudelia claims that Medvedchuk ‘has been Tymoshenko’s long-term behind-the scenes advisor helping her to establish close ties with the Kremlin and serving as a chief mediator during negotiations with Yanukovych’ (11 December blog). This claim could have come straight from Yushchenko and has no evidence to back it up. Unless Kudelia has inside information on Medvedchuk’s alleged relationship with Tymoshenko then he should not repeat rumours taken from the conspiracy-minded Ukrainian media that suit his ideological bias.
When discussing what kind of prime minister Tymoshenko desires to see if elected, Kudelia believes that she would seek an ‘invisible and obedient Prime Minister’ (30 December blog). This ignores the fact that Yushchenko also desired such a prime minister and his favourite of the three who served under him was Yekhanurov. Kudelia’s comment obviously failed to predict that Tymoshenko would offer Tihipko the position of prime minister after the first round, unless he is of the opinion that Tymoshenko believes that Tihipko would be ‘invisible and obedient’.
Kudelia praises Yushchenko as ‘The Last Pro-Western Democrat’ (30 November blog) whereas Tymoshenko is ‘Running Against Herself’ (9 November blog). Tymoshenko’s background in the energy sector in the mid 1990s is combed through in great detail but in Kudelia’s discussion of Yushchenko he ignores the various scandals that have dogged Yushchenko over the Bank Ukrayina and in the National Bank which also took place in the 1990s. In addition, should we not be asking what Yushchenko’s favourite prime minister, Yekhanurov, was doing in the 1990s when as head of the State Property Fund he oversaw the rise of oligarchs through insider privatization? Little wonder Yekhanurov describes the oligarchs in glowing terms as Ukraine’s ‘national bourgeoisie’.
In Kudelia’s discussion of the candidates, Tymoshenko is the only one which he portrays in such negative terms as somebody with a ‘mythical image’, who possesses ‘hypocrisy’ turned from a mere technique into an art form, and a ‘devious and insincere politician’ (9 November blog). The most biased discussed relates to the claim that ‘the number of filthy-rich oligarchs in Tymoshenko’s close circle has long ago surpassed that of Yanukovych’ (9 November blog).
This claim simply has no relationship to reality and is purely a product of Kudelia’s Yuliaphobia. Kudelia claims that of Ukraine’s top 10 oligarchs six are allegedly identified with Tymoshenko and two more are on good terms with her (80%!). To make such a claim requires Kudelia to stretch his imagination beyond breaking point and claim that Tymoshenko’s allies seemingly include Renat, Viktor Pinchuk and Igor Kolomoysky. As Ukrayinska Pravda (9 January) has pointed out, Ukraine’s five leading oligarchs met in a French ski resort to discuss whom to back and they opted to support Yanukovych, not Tymoshenko. Akhmetov is a major funder of Yanukovych’s election campaign, Kolomoysky has strained relations with Tymoshenko and Pinchuk, although neutral, backed Yatseniuk.
Yushchenko’s 2004 election programme hardly mentioned nation building and never mentioned Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic Choice, despite Kudelia arguing otherwise. Any careful reading of the 2004 programme will show it to be social-populist. In the 2010 elections first place for populist billboards went to Yanukovych and second place to Yushchenko (I have been based in Ukraine since August 2009).
Kudelia claims ‘Yushchenko is adamant in his support for NATO’ (30 November blog) but ignores the fact that NATO has never once been mentioned in Yushchenko’s two election programmes (2004, 2010) or Our Ukraine’s three election programmes (2002, 2006, 2007). Kudelia quotes Yushchenko’s widely criticised comment that neither Yanukovych or Tymoshenko could spell NATO right which presumably could also be applied to him in the light of the absence of any mention of NATO in his programmes.
In quoting Yushchenko’s disingenuous comment Kudelia ignores the differences between Yanukovych and Tymoshenko. The former rejected the need for a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) in September 2006 (after supporting President Kuchma’s request to NATO join a MAP in 2002 and 2004). In contrast, Tymoshenko signed an open letter (with Yushchenko and parliamentary speaker Yatseniuk) in January 2008 to NATO requesting a MAP. Putting Tymoshenko and Yanukovych in the same anti-NATO camp also ignores the large pro-NATO wing of the Tymoshenko camp, including former Yushchenko supporters such as Borys Tarasiuk. The Yanukovych election campaign and Party of Regions has no pro-NATO wing and its position on MAP and NATO membership is a regression in comparison to the Kuchma era.
Kudelia’s blogs on Ukraine’s 2010 elections show an unrepentant bias and Yuliaphobia that should have no place in a scholarly institution such as CERES and in programmes funded from external sources by the Ukrainian diaspora. Kudelia’s domination of the Jacyk Programme Election 2010 blog has aimed to use it as a platform to propagate highly biased and inaccurate claims.
