Taras Kuzio’s Blog

Two Viktors (From Ukraine Analyst 19)

A Tale of the Two Viktors
by Taras Kuzio

The resignation of Viktor Baloga was unexpected but long overdue. It had long been obvious to everybody – except that is President Viktor Yushchenko – that Baloga was a liability, not an asset. A former leader of the Agrarian Party told Ukraine Analyst that he knew it was ‘the end for Yushchenko’ after Baloga went to work for him in September 2006. The former Agrarian Party leader defined Baloga as an incompetent manager, petty market trader and smuggler and someone with limited intellectual capabilities.

Baloga headed the presidential secretariat from September 2006-May 2009, the same period of time as Viktor Medvedchuk headed the presidential administration (as it was then known) in 2002-2004. Baloga’s period as chief of staff will be remembered for having destroyed the presidents Our Ukraine as a serious political force, having catastrophically reduced the president’s popularity at home and abroad, for repeated political crisis in 2007 and 2008, conflict with the 2006-2007 Viktor Yanukovuch and Yulia Tymoshenko governments and nearly two pre-term elections. Following the dissolution of parliament on 2 April 2007, Yushchenko again became Ukraine’s second most popular politician with 15-17 percent support, a position that would have made him a viable contender to win a second term in office if presidential elections had been held that year. Two years later, Yushchenko’s popularity has slumped to an all-time low of 3-4 percent and he is Ukraine’s sixth most popular politician, even lower in popularity than parliamentary speaker Lytvyn and Communist Party (KPU) leader Piotr Symonenko. The reasons for this are three fold.

Ukrainian elites and voters. Ukrainian voters and Ukrainian society have developed and evolved faster than the country’s elites. The elites mistakenly continue to treat the narod (people) as sheep, particularly in eastern-southern Ukraine where civil society is weaker and the Party of Regions can get away with more than can ‘orange’ political forces and leaders in western-central Ukraine. A Party of Regions deputy told a Ukrainian political analyst: ‘Show us the narod’ (www.pravda.com.ua, 2 June). In other words, the Party of Regions believes it has little to be afraid of from civil society and protests as the narod is incapable of acting as citizens. Ukrainian politicians have too quickly forgotten the lessons of 2004. In reality, Ukrainian society and voters do take a far greater interest in politics than does the average citizen in Western, consolidated democracies. This greater degree of knowledge and interest in politics is dampened by widespread cynicism, disillusionment with politicians in government and the opposition and a widespread sense of powerlessness (i.e. efficacy) to influence events taking place around them. Political parties are not ideologically based and are financed by businessmen, rather than by membership dues.Political leaders have ignored the fact that Ukrainians voters are punishing politicians for their deception and the ignoring of their election pledges. Traditionally, party and presidential programme’s had little to do with reality, were not read by voters and were ignored by politicians after they were elected. Nevertheless, voters had a relatively good sense of the main slogans of political parties and leaders during elections and it was these that remained uppermost in their minds when they considered if politicians had betrayed their voters after they came to power.

Ukrainian voters believe that Yushchenko has not implemented his 2004 election programme and this fact, coupled with his weak leadership and perennial squabbling with every government, has led to voters deserting him. Oleksandr Moroz, Socialist Party (SPU) leader, campaigned in the March 2006 elections for an orange coalition and then proceeded to defect to the Party of Regions in July 2006 with whom they, and the KPU, established the Anti-Crisis coalition. The SPU failed to enter parliament in the September 2007 pre-term elections and its support has disintegrated to one percent. Most of the SPU’s support has transferred to the Volodymyr Lytvyn bloc or the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT). Anatoliy Kinakh, head of the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, defected to the Party of Regions in March 2007 and his party’s future looks so bleak that he has offered to merge it with the Party of Regions.

Our Ukraine-People’s Self Defence (NU-NS) campaigned in 2007 in support of unifying national democratic parties into a presidential party, removing parliamentary immunity and for equality of all citizens before the law. Having reneged on all three pledges NU-NS has collapsed in popularity to the same low levels as President Yushchenko and most of its support has transferred to Arseniy Yatseniuk. Polls suggest that it – like the SPU – will not enter the next parliament.

Ukrainians also desire that their politicians act with dignity, especially when they travel abroad. 61 percent of Ukrainians believe that Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, head of the NU-NS bloc in the 2007 elections, resign after his drunken brawl in Frankfurt airport earlier this month. 77 percent of Ukrainians believe that any politician who acts in such a disgraceful manner has no right to hold a senior state position (www.pravda.com.ua, 2 June).

A grand coalition of BYuT and the Party of Regions could lead to a similar crisis for Tymoshenko. Then opposition leader Tymoshenko and BYuT campaigned in the 2007 elections for a ‘democratic’ (i.e. orange) coalition and always ruled out any cooperation with the Party of Regions. If a grand coalition is now established between these two forces BYuT run the risk of also being accused of having ‘betrayed’ the Orange Revolution. This potential loss of support could come on top of reduced support for Tymoshenko and BYuT arising from her position as head of government during a severe global crisis. Yushchenko’s popularity slumped in 2008 after he had campaigned for a ‘democratic’ coalition but Ukrainian voters proceeded to see how he, and chief of staff Baloga, sought to undermine the coalition and Tymoshenko government at every opportunity. Tymoshenko’s support in western Ukraine could be completed wiped out, benefitting Yatseniuk.

Responsibility and Accountability. The president campaigned in 2007 in support of a ‘democratic coalition’ and had insisted on his NU-NS bloc receiving half of government positions (regardless of their poorer electoral performance compared to BYuT). Yushchenko also demanded government positions that he was not constitutionally entitled to, such as Minister of Interior. Former President Leonid Kravchuk told Channel 5 television (25 May) that the Tymoshenko government should be therefore considered Yushchenko’s government: ‘He blessed it and passed it, placing a cross by every name. This means that he agreed with every candidate’.

Kravchuk pointed out that if the president refuses to take responsibility for his own ministers then he should withdraw them from the Tymoshenko government. The resultant situation has become chaotic with the president claiming that ‘his faction’ (NU-NS) is not a part of the coalition (Inter television, 22 May). Meanwhile, ‘his’ ministers remain in the Tymoshenko government while the presidents remaining loyalists in NU-NS refuse to join the coalition or vote for government policies. Kravchuk demanded that it was time the president stopped acting as an ‘opposition expert’ and instead take responsibility.

Ukrainian elites, politicians included, have never been forced to accept any responsibility and accountability for their actions. President Yushchenko ignored his declining popularity in the last two years and never sought to adjust his policies and management style in the light of whether they were popular. Instead, Yushchenko argued that what was more important was the ‘correctness’ of his policies rather than if Ukrainian voters liked them. This ignored a fundamental rule of politics; namely, if a politician is unpopular then the policies he espouses on, for example NATO membership or the 1933 Ukrainian famine as a genocide, will also not receive public support. If Yushchenko’s popularity now stood at 30-40 percent public support for NATO membership would have also increased rather than remaining unchanged at 20-25 percent since Yushchenko’s election in January 2005.

Just prior to resigning then Chief of Staff Baloga argued that it was not the president to blame but Ukrainian voters for not being sufficiently developed and continuing to harbour a ‘Soviet mentality’. Baloga said, ‘I believe that a lot of his ideas are linked organically with the future. With a future where there will be no Soviet mentality and ideological ballast, wild stereotypes and simplistic views’ (RUA Novosti, 4 May). A lot of Yushchenko’s initiatives and activities are seen, Baloga remained convinced, through, ‘yesterday’s ideology which aggressively sits in the minds of people’ (RUA Novosti, 4 May).

Such views reflect an elitist snobbish disdain for the narod that ignores the profound evolution of Ukrainian voters and citizens since the disintegration of the USSR and following two decades of Ukrainian independence. These views also ignore the fact that one in five Ukrainians participated in the Orange Revolution, the largest protest in what has been described as the ‘second wave’ of seven democratic revolutions and breakthroughs in Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine from 1996-2004.

In the same interview, Baloga claimed that as chief of staff the presidential secretariat had undertaken, ‘nothing that would have harmed society and state’ (RUA Novosti, 4 May). The opposite is the case: the president and chief of staff intervened unconstitutionally in the workings of the government on a daily basis, breaking the law many times over. The 2007 decree disbanding parliament used legally dubious justifications. The president and chief of staff, as did all political forces, politically intervened in the workings of the judiciary and Constitutional Court. Ukrainian lawyers and legal experts told Ukraine Analyst that the lack of leadership in the country during the last two years had led to ‘anarchy’ in the judiciary and a big growth in corruption among judges and within courts.

Duplicity. In the last interview before his resignation, Baloga alleged that, ‘My role on Bankova is exclusively managerial’, including the administration of the presidents constitutional rights. Ultimately the president is responsible for his own actions and that of his subordinates. If Baloga undertook a step that was at odds with the president’s wishes he could have removed him at any time. Yushchenko said at one stage that ‘Baloga is me!’

On two occasions this duplicity reached absurd proportions. In November 2008, the president claimed on a visit to Poland that he knew nothing of the vote to remove Yatseniuk as parliamentary speaker. The vote was only successful because Baloga’s loyalists within NU-NS voted in support of the motion. If Yushchenko did indeed not know of Baloga’s intention it was unprofessional for him to maintain Baloga as his chief of staff after such a profound example of insubordination.

On 13 April 2009, Yushchenko called on parliament to support the anti-crisis legislation required by the IMF before it released its second tranche of funds in the Stand-By Agreement with Ukraine. A day later the vote failed after two pro-presidential wings of NU-NS, including Baloga’s United Centre party, failed to support the legislation. Again, Baloga’s insubordination should have cost him his position, unless, that is, on both occasions there had been no insubordination and they were both cases of the president’s own duplicity. Parliamentary speaker Lytvyn said after the failed vote that, ‘The activity of any individual should be judged not by his intentions but by his practical actions’ (www.pravda.com.ua, 15 April). The president wanted to have his cake and eat it by keeping ‘his’ ministers in the government without them (or himself) taking any responsibility for the impact of the global crisis upon Ukraine.

Why Keep Baloga So Long?
There are four reasons most often given as to why the president maintained Baloga as his chief of staff for nearly three years.

Personal character: Yushchenko is often described as ‘lazy’, Ukrainian political analyst Mykola Ryabchuk told Ukraine Analyst. Much of the laborious daily work of the president was passed to the chief of staff. This reputation for laziness was earned when Yushchenko was head of the National Bank, Anders Aslund told a panel on Ukraine at the American Enterprise Institute in December 2005.

Byzantine politics: Yushchenko’s lack of self confidence in dealing with the Byzantine nature of Ukraine’s post-Soviet politics meant that his mild mannered two first chiefs of staff, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Oleh Rybachuk, were unsuited to provide him with a defensive body of armour. Only Baloga’s aggressive nature and ‘crisis management’ could ensure that the president had the added support he needed to deal with ‘that damn woman’ (Tymoshenko) and Yanukovych. Baloga acted as the president’s ‘pit-bull’.

Intellectual capabilities: weak intellectual capabilities, according to Ivan Lozowy, a Kyiv-based analyst and editor of Ukraine Insider, meant that Yushchenko found it difficult to understand many issues in Ukrainian politics and failed to appreciate how his actions would be poorly perceived at home and abroad. Yushchenko was often seen by Western visitors to be out of touch with reality and living in his own world. Leonid Kuchma’s former speech writer Vasyl Baziv told Ukraine Analyst that President Kuchma was a different style of leader, a micro manager who read and wrote hand written comments on documents and listened to a wide range of advice after which he made his own decisions.

Arrogance: in the 2004 elections Yushchenko was described as a candidate with a ‘messiah complex’. Yushchenko has always sought to have sycophants surrounding him who heap praise upon him rather than provide him with critical analysis. Former President Leonid Kravchuk told Channel 5 television (26 May) that Yushchenko can only work with those, ‘who will unquestionably undertake his orders, his desires and wishes. Any kind of other person, who attempts to have his own view, or who seeks to have his own position on any kind of question, he will be unable to work with’. An inability to accept criticism or undertake self-criticism has been Yushchenko’s undoing as it has prevented him from learning from his mistakes. This was clearly seen after the 2007 elections when Ukrainian voters gave Yushchenko a second chance that he failed to grasp. 2008 will be remembered as the year that made Yushchenko’s second term impossible.

Conclusions
Baloga’s departing condemnation of Yushchenko were not taken seriously by Ukrainian analysts and politicians (www.edc.org.ua, 19 May). Baloga’s claim that he had never organised conflict with governments and that his actions had always been undertaken on orders from the president was only partially true. Yushchenko has indeed been unable to work with three out of four governments, a consequence of the poorly crafted constitutional reforms that he signed behind the backs of Orange Revolution protestors in December 2004 but also because of his own personality. Yushchenko could never accept that he had no constitutional right to micro-manage the government which under the 2006 constitution fell under the authority of parliament.

Baloga’s criticism of corruption and promotion of family insiders (‘kumism’ from the word ‘kum’, in-law) was described as a ‘bad joke’ by an Ukrayinska Pravda commentator. Baloga’s ally, former deputy head of the Security Service (SBU) Tyberiy Durdynets, who also headed the SBU’s directorate to combat organised crime, was placed on an Interpol watch list after the prosecutor ordered his arrest and he went into hiding. Ukrainian political analysts scoffed at Baloga’s claims after his resignation where he portrayed himself as a ‘dissident’ member of a secret ‘Helsinki Group’ within the presidential secretariat (www.pravda.com.ua, 21 May).

It is unlikely that Baloga will be criminally charged for at least two reasons. Firstly, Ukrainian elites never leave a paper trail of their abuse of office. Secondly, Baloga warned that he had collected ‘kompromat’ (compromising materials) on Yushchenko and his family, including his son Andriy who was the subject of a scandal in 2005 after he was found to be driving a car worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Baloga’s future now remains uncertain? He will undoubtedly be elected leader of the virtual United Centre Party but the party has no likelihood of entering parliament until elections are held in 2012 (or later if a grand coalition is formed and parliaments term is extended to 2014 or 2015).  Until the next elections Baloga is therefore in the political wilderness.  Medvedchuk’s Social Democratic united Party (SDPUo) became marginalised after Yushchenko’s election and the only influence Medvedchuk exerts is through former SDPUo members who have joined BYuT.

After resigning as chief of staff, Baloga explained that he felt it was pointless for Yushchenko to stand in the elections because he had not fulfilled his 2004 election programme. Baloga forgot to mention his own responsibility for this failure. Baloga instead called upon Yushchenko to support Yanukovych’s candidacy. Baloga is most likely to play a role in the January 2010 presidential elections within the Yanukovych campaign, nobody else will have him.

See also Taras Kuzio, ‘Inferiority Complexes of Baloha, Yushchenko Led Them to Each Other’, Kyiv Post, 4 February 2009. http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op_ed/34910