Taras Kuzio’s Blog

Yushchenko Facilitates Yanukovych’s Election and Buries the Orange Revolution

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 7 Issue: 31
February 16, 2010 08:04 AM Age: 1 days
Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Domestic/Social, Ukraine, Home Page
By: Taras Kuzio

President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko

Two major myths promoted by President Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential elections were that there was no difference in policies between the two main candidates, Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko, and that both were “pro-Russian.” These myths helped defeat Tymoshenko by 3 percent in an election where every vote counted.

Several pieces of evidence point to the Yushchenko-Yanukovych alliance that facilitated Yanukovych’s election. For instance, the lack of criticism by Yushchenko of Yanukovych preceding the elections (Ukrayinska Pravda, February 10). Yushchenko never criticized Yanukovych’s pro-Russian policies on energy (gas consortium, return to non-market subsidized prices, and revival of the corrupt RosUkrEnergo); Russian as a state language; the extension of the Black Sea Fleet base beyond 2017; opposition to NATO membership, and the Party of Regions alliance with Russian extremist nationalists in Odessa and the Crimea. Yushchenko and the presidential secretariat levelled daily abuse at Tymoshenko, accusing her of “treason” and vetoed a record number of government policies.

Moreover, a draft agreement was leaked in December 2009 by a staff member in the presidential secretariat that revealed plans for a Yushchenko-Yanukovych alliance (UNIAN, December 25, 2009; EDM, January 5, 6). The Ukrainian media discussed the issue of Yushchenko becoming prime minister under President Yanukovych (www.comments.com.ua, December 4, 2009).

In the event of a Our Ukraine-Peoples Self Defence (NUNS) – Party of Regions grand coalition being formed, the Yushchenko loyalist Yuriy Yekhanurov might be offered the post of prime minister (Ukrayinska Pravda, February 8-10). Prime Minister and Our Ukraine leader Yekhanurov led the negotiations with the Party of Regions after the March 2006 elections for a grand coalition that collapsed. Yekhanurov was the head of the State Property Fund in the 1990’s and the oligarchs are his creation.

The Party of Regions and the NUNS faction, together with the Communists and Volodymyr Lytvyn bloc, sought to remove pro-Tymoshenko Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko. The vote was supported by NUNS deputy Petro Yushchenko. Similarly, between rounds one and two Yushchenko vetoed the cabinet’s December 16, 2009 decree appointing General Hennady Moskal as Crimea’s police chief (UNIAN, February 2). Moskal, who is a deputy in the pro-Lutsenko Peoples Self Defense group in NUNS, was praised for halting election fraud in favor of Yanukovych in round one. “The Party of Regions, who is as thick as thieves with Yushchenko, controls the administrative resources on the peninsula,” Moskal said (www.zik.com.ua, February 11). The Tymoshenko campaign found evidence of fraud in the Crimea in round two (www.vybory.tymoshenko.ua, February 10).

Meanwhile, between rounds one and two Yushchenko removed the Kharkiv and Dniproptrovsk governors who had expressed support for Tymoshenko and had refused to provide administrative resources for Yanukovych’s campaign. Yushchenko also removed six ambassadors where there had been few votes for Yushchenko in round one (Ukrayinska Pravda, February 10). The Tymoshenko campaign will contest in the courts the election results in the Crimea, Donetsk, Zaporozhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk (www.vybory.tymoshenko.ua, February 10).

Only five days before the second round the Party of Regions, the pro-Yanukovych wing of NUNS and the Communists, passed changes to the election law. President Yushchenko quickly signed the law, ignoring a plea to veto it by the Committee of Voters (www.cvu.org.ua, February 4), independent experts, and Tymoshenko (Ukrayinska Pravda, February 3, 4).

These changes were widely condemned because they changed the electoral rules in the middle of the elections. If the changes were deemed so important, they should have been demanded by Yushchenko prior to round one. Yushchenko’s actions proved that he had forged an alliance with Yanukovych, Kyiv expert Volodymyr Fesenko said (www.politdumka.kiev.ua, February 4).

What was left of Yushchenko’s reputation, in Ukraine and abroad, was effectively destroyed by his support for the electoral law changes, because they undermined his role as the constitutional guarantor of free elections and his election campaign slogan of having brought democracy to Ukraine, Kyiv expert Ihor Zhdanov said (www.politdumka.kiev.ua, February 4). Oleksandr Tretiakov, a long time ally, resigned from the Our Ukraine party in which Yushchenko is its honorary chairman.

Most controversially, between the election rounds Yushchenko signed two decrees giving hero status to Organization of Ukrainian Nationalist leader Stepan Bandera and to honor members of various Ukrainian national liberation movements in the twentieth century (www.president.gov.ua, January 28). The decrees, immediately condemned by Russia, helped to additionally mobilize pro-Yanukovych voters in Eastern and Southern Ukraine. Professor Myroslav Popovych claimed the decrees “disorientated” Eastern-Southern Ukrainian voters and mobilized them against the “Orange” candidate, Tymoshenko (Ukrayinsky Tyzhden, January 29-February 4).

The timing of the two decrees was odd, as they were not issued prior to round one, when they could have given Yushchenko additional nationalist votes from supporters of the Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok. The decrees could have been issued at any time during his presidency, as he did with an October 2007 decree giving hero status to Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) leader Roman Shukhevych (EDM, October 23, 2007). A decree in honor of Sich Sharpshooters, a Ukrainian unit in the Austrian army in World War I, was issued on January 6 before the first round.

Finally, Yuriy Shukhevych, the son of the UPA commander, led a campaign in Lviv with other nationalist leaders in support of Yushchenko’s call to vote against both candidates in round two. Evidence was provided by Tymoshenko in an appearance on Inter television (February 5) that these appeals were published in Lviv newspapers with financial assistance from the Yanukovych campaign.

Anti-Semitic leaflets appeared in Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk (witnessed by this author) urging voters: “Do not vote for that Jew,” a reference to Tymoshenko’s father’s alleged ethnicity (the leaflet was reproduced on www.rferl.org, February 3).

The irony of Ukraine’s 2010 election campaign is that the nationalist candidate, Yushchenko, long vilified by Russia, likely facilitated the election of the pro-Russian candidate, Yanukovych, Moscow’s favourite in the Ukrainian elections (EDM, January 22, 27, 29). Yushchenko, brought to power by the 2004 Orange Revolution, effectively destroyed the Orange Revolution himself. The Revolution, long the personal object of hate by the former Russian President Vladimir Putin who saw it as one of his personal policy failures, was buried by that very person (Yushchenko) so despised by Putin.

No better final epitaph could have been written for Yushchenko.

Posted in Ukraine's 2010 Presidential Elections | 4 Comments »

The Ukrainian World According to Kudelia (and CERES)

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.

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Yushchenko-Yanukovych Alliance

Yushchenko and Yanukovych Forge an Electoral Alliance

President Viktor Yushchenko (L) and Party of Regions leader Yanukovych

On December 25, 2009 UNIAN published a secret agreement “On Political Reconciliation and the Development of Ukraine” leaked by Yaroslav Kozachok, the deputy head of the presidential secretariat’s department on domestic affairs and regional development. Kozachok resigned in protest at the secret agreement between President Viktor Yushchenko and Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych to appoint the former as Prime Minister in the event of Yanukovych’s election.

The Yushchenko and Yanukovych campaigns –not surprisingly– alleged that the document was a forgery (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 28). At the same time, its authenticity is proven by two steps undertaken by the presidential secretariat. Firstly, the presidential secretariat’s pressure on television channels not to discuss the document, which led to Kozachok complaining about the return of censorship to Ukrainian media. “It is obvious that ignoring (the document) has taken place on instructions from ‘above,’ and the system has worked to block the appearance in the mass media of information unpleasant for senior officials” (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 29).

This would not be the first occasion when direct intervention halted revelations about a secret electoral alliance between Yushchenko-Yanukovych. In December the Security Service (SBU) was instructed by the president to investigate the appearance of large billboards throughout Kyiv and other cities that had reproduced the front cover of the December 4 edition of the weekly magazine Komentarii with the headline “Yushchenko has negotiated the seat of premier.” The billboards, which showed Yushchenko and Yanukovych embracing in a pose reminiscent of the Soviet and East German leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker, were ordered to be taken down. The Ukrainian media complained of “censorship.”

Secondly, if the document unveiled by Kozachok was indeed a “forgery” then why did the president order the prosecutor-general to launch an investigation into the publication of a “state secret?” Yushchenko ordered a full report within ten days on how the document was leaked, while presidential secretariat head Vera Ulianchenko initiated an internal investigation of Kozachok’s employment record (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 28).

The secret agreement aims to ensure “political stability and economic development” and to end years of political in-fighting. Both sides agreed compromises based upon avoiding raising issues that are considered divisive within Ukrainian society. Yushchenko agreed not to raise rehabilitating and promoting nationalist leaders or demanding compulsory Ukrainian language tests in schools and universities. In return, Yanukovych would not advocate Russian as a second state language or call for a referendum on Ukrainian NATO membership (UNIAN, December 25). Yanukovych has downplayed his election program commitment to Russian as a state language and Yushchenko has not mentioned NATO in his program.

The next section of the secret agreement calls for Yushchenko and Yanukovych not to criticize each other. The 2010 election campaign is noticeable for the absence of criticism by Yushchenko of Yanukovych and the former’s daily accusations against Tymoshenko. Yushchenko has asked voters to stay at home and not vote in round two, arguing there is no difference between Tymoshenko and Yanukovych who will inevitably enter the February 7 run off. A low turn-out in “Orange Ukraine” would result in Yanukovych’s election, while a large voter turn-out would ensure Tymoshenko’s election since the combined “Orange” vote is larger. Yushchenko is in effect calling on his supporters to not vote negatively against Yanukovych in the second round.

Playing on Western Ukrainian, anti-Russian nationalism, Yushchenko has accused Tymoshenko of being “unpatriotic” by referring to the fact that she has only one ethnic Ukrainian parent (her Armenian father separated from her mother when she was a child). In addition, since the summer of 2008 Yushchenko has repeatedly condemned as “treasonous” Tymoshenko’s cultivation of a pragmatic economic-energy relationship with Russia that has brought her support from Western Europeans anxious to avoid another gas crisis in January. Yushchenko has appealed to Ukrainians to vote for a “Ukrainian premier” (meaning himself) who will not, allegedly unlike Tymoshenko, sell Ukraine to Russia by permitting the Black Sea Fleet to remain in Sevastopol beyond 2017, which would require a constitutional amendment that no president could undertake (Ukrayinska Pravda, January 3). Tymoshenko would also allegedly transfer Ukraine’s gas pipelines to Russia, an accusation which contradicts Tymoshenko’s mobilization of parliament in February 2007 to vote for a law banning any transfer of the pipelines from Ukrainian state control and her March 2009 agreement with the EU to modernize the pipeline infrastructure without Russian involvement.

Tymoshenko is also accused of being the “biggest threat to democracy” in Ukraine, Yushchenko has claimed (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 24). This accusation ignores the perilous state of Ukrainian democracy, as shown by recent Western and Ukrainian surveys, which reveal that Ukrainians associate democracy with “chaos” following years of instability and elite in-fighting.

The “Coalition of Political Reconciliation and Development of Ukraine” would propose Yushchenko as its candidate for prime minister. The basis of this coalition remains unexplained, since Yushchenko controls only 15 out of 72 Our Ukraine deputies.

Yushchenko has always wavered between supporting a grand coalition with the Party of Regions or a “democratic” coalition with the Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT). Following the March 2006 elections Yushchenko sent the Prime Minister (and head of Our Ukraine) Yuriy Yekhanurov to negotiate a grand coalition and Roman Besmertnyi to form a “democratic” coalition. Following the dissolution of parliament in April 2007, Yushchenko negotiated a compromise with the Party of Regions to hold pre-term elections in September in exchange for a grand coalition. During the 2007 election campaign Yushchenko campaigned for a “democratic” coalition, which was established with Tymoshenko as its candidate for prime minister in December 2007. Raisa Bohatyriova, the head of the Party of Regions parliamentary faction, was appointed as secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NRBO) who, together with the presidential secretariat head Viktor Baloga, spent 2008 seeking to undermine the Tymoshenko government in which Yushchenko had demanded that half the cabinet posts go to Our Ukraine.

The agreement seeks a grand coalition through a Yanukovych presidency, but will again fail for the same reasons that it has in the past. Yushchenko will be unable to ensure that a parliamentary majority will vote for him: Our Ukraine deputy Oleksandr Tretiakov said that parliament would never vote for Yushchenko’s candidacy (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 15). Tymoshenko would therefore remain a constitutionally powerful prime minister under President Yanukovych.

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Russian Factor in 2010 Elections

The Russian Factor in Ukraine’s 2010 Presidential Elections

Russian Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol, Ukraine

The Russian factor in this year’s Ukrainian presidential elections is essentially a straw man and far less important key than five years ago. Russian political technologists openly worked for one candidate (Viktor Yanukovych), while Moscow allegedly sought to poison the opposition candidate (Viktor Yushchenko) and President Vladimir Putin visited Kyiv on the eve of the first and second rounds to endorse Yanukovych. Putin congratulated Yanukovych on his “victory” two days after the second round –and one day before the central election commission had released the official results.

Mykhailo Kasianov, now in opposition but then an ally of Putin, described the Orange Revolution, the defeat of Yanukovych and election of Yushchenko as the biggest setback of Putin’s presidency (www.glavred.info, January 11).

Russian policy is now less obviously interventionist. It is highly exaggerated by Ukrainian candidates, particularly by the incumbent Yushchenko, who with single digit poll ratings is fighting for his political life. Yushchenko’s 2010 election campaign has retreated to Galicia on an anti-Russian, nationalist platform. He repeatedly labels the two front runners Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych, who will enter the second round on February 7, as a “Moscow coalition” (Ukrayinska Pravda, January 8).

Yushchenko’s anti-Russian platform will likely backfire for three reasons.

Firstly, it has already been attempted by Leonid Kravchuk in the 1994 elections and he lost in the second round by 44 percent to Leonid Kuchma’s 52 percent. In the 2010 elections, Yushchenko is not expected to enter the second round. Moreover, Ukrainian opinion polls show that over 80 percent of Ukrainians seek good relations with Russia and do not see any contradiction between Ukraine’s integration into Europe and maintaining these ties. Any candidate who campaigns on an anti-Russian platform will consequently weaken their electoral credentials. Finally, Yushchenko’s campaign is a regression from patriotism (2004) to nationalism (2010), which has shrunk his electoral appeal to Galicia from that of five years earlier when he swept the west and central Ukraine.

Yushchenko has focused on daily attacks against Tymoshenko, while ignoring Yanukovych (EDM, January 5, 6), with one theme being her allegedly close working relationship with Putin. Yushchenko claimed that President Dmitry Medvedev’s appeal represented indirect support for Tymoshenko (Ukrayinska Pravda, January 3).

The Unified Russia (UR) party has endorsed Yanukovych as its favored candidate, one reason being that it entered a cooperation agreement with the Party of Regions in 2005. “We believe that the Party of Regions mainly represents Russian-speaking voters in Ukraine who live in the east, south and central regions. These are all people who are sympathetic to Russia and want to see the development of Russian-Ukrainian relations,” said UR deputy Konstantin Zatulin (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 25).

Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party has only cooperated with the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) group in the European Parliament and is the most active Ukrainian party in Strasbourg-Brussels. Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine is also a member of the EPP, but he has been persona non grata since 2008 after EPP leaders repeatedly criticized his attempts at undermining the Tymoshenko government. Tymoshenko –but not Yushchenko– attended the December 7, 2009 EPP meeting in Bonn where she was presented as “the future president of Ukraine” (www.tymoshenko.ua, December 9).

Yushchenko has used the Russian factor against Tymoshenko by raising three issues:

1. Claiming that she would indefinitely extend the Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol. Yet, among the main candidates only Yanukovych (EDM, November 3, 2009), Serhiy Tihipko and Communist Party leader Piotr Symonenko have supported this step. In addition, no elected president can unilaterally extend the lease beyond 2017, as this would require a constitutional majority to change the constitution to no longer ban foreign bases.

2. Alleging that Tymoshenko will sell off Ukraine’s gas pipelines. In February 2007 Tymoshenko mobilized 430 (out of 450) deputies to vote for legislation that bans every form of transfer of the pipelines. In March 2009 she signed an agreement with the EU to modernize the pipelines that excluded Russia, provoking protest by Putin. Four candidates have supported a gas consortium with Russia: Yanukovych, Tihipko, Symonenko and Arseniy Yatseniuk (EDM, November 20, 2009).

3. Arguing that Tymoshenko has backtracked from NATO membership, which appears far-fetched as none of the 18 candidates –including Yushchenko– mention NATO in their 2010 programs (EDM, December 15, 2009). NATO membership is on the backburner because support for this step has not increased during Yushchenko’s presidency. Yushchenko prioritized blocking Tymoshenko’s return to the post of prime minister in 2006 over the one realistic chance of Ukraine obtaining a Membership Action Plan, Ukraine-fatigue grew from 2007 in Europe and the US, while President Barack Obama is not pursuing NATO enlargement to the same extent as the previous administration.

Within the Tymoshenko team there are NATO supporters and Kuchma-era high levels of cooperation with NATO would revive if Tymoshenko was elected. If Yanukovych is elected, NATO membership would drop from the agenda and cooperation will decline compared to the Kuchma era.

The Russian factor diminished after Yushchenko’s last pre-election press conference, which transpired as an anti-Tymoshenko speech (www.president, gov.ua, www.pl.com.ua, January 12). Yushchenko revived documents from the criminal case fabricated by Putin and Kuchma against Tymoshenko following the 2000-2001 Kuchmagate scandal to undermine her as an opposition leader. Kuchma was unsuccessful in making such charges stick; nevertheless, Tymoshenko became the only member of the Ukrainian elite who was ever imprisoned (February 2001) (Radio Free Europe, August 15, 2002).

Yushchenko argues that the “Moscow Coalition” (Tymoshenko and Yanukovych) are no different, and is calling on “patriotic Ukrainians” not to vote in the second round. Therefore, the election outcome will hinge on whether “Orange” voters will heed Yushchenko’s advice. Listening to Yushchenko would have the effect of dampening the turnout in western Ukraine and ensuring Yanukovych’s election (and possibly Yushchenko becoming prime minister). If they ignore Yushchenko’s appeal, Tymoshenko will likely be elected as Ukraine’s next president.

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Which President Would You Vote For?

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/

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