Iryna Chupryna October 9th, 2008

Yesterday President Viktor Yuschenko of Ukraine has announced the dissolution of the parliament and third general election in less than three years in a pre-recorded speech on TV. The polls are going to be held on 7 December.

Accusing Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yuschenko said that “I am convinced, deeply convinced that the democratic coalition was ruined by one thing alone - human ambition. The ambition of one person. Thirst for power, different values, personal interests taking precedence over national interests.”  He also talked of “external threats”. The Tymoshenko Bloc, President Yuschenko said, had become “the hostage of its own leaders who would sacrifice everything - language, security, European prospects”.

On one hand, Yuschenko’s move should be hailed since the parliament showed itself as extremely ineffective institution, remembered by constant political rows, blocking, and delays in adopting crucially important laws. But, on the other hand, the clear winner of the forthcoming elections will be the opposition Party of Regions, since the forces close to Yuschenko and Tymoshenko pledged to create an effective democratic coalition, but failed. By watching their constant internal strife the Party of Regions only gained political dividends, while the “orange” parties’ ratings plummeted. Soaring inflation and unclear stand on Russian-Georgian war will probably lead to the serious political losses of the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) in the Western Ukraine. The pro-presidential Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense bloc also dissapointed voters with internal splittures - some of its deputies started to shift towards the BYuT, others joined a new Yediniy Tsentr party loyal to the Party of Regions.

The snap election is also likely to bring forward new political projects. One of them probably would come from the former speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk, another is likely to emerge around the former Defense Minister, and now ardent critic of both Yuschenko and Tymoshenko, Anatoliy Gritsenko. Radical nationalist party Svoboda led by Oleh Tiagnibok, which constantly failed in recent elections, also has a chance to overcome a 3% barrier. But there is no doubt that the ruling role in the new parliament will be played by the Party of Regions, which will probably make a configuration either with communist or/and other smaller political projects.

Alas, it was much easier to achieve a democratic breakthrough than to consolidate democracy in this large, sharply divided along social, cultural, language lines eastern European country. First, most of the so-called new political leaders have a clearly old pattern of thinking - i.e. how to win next election rather than have a long-term development program for a state, reforms in economics, public policy system, anticorruption struggle, to mention only a few. It’s not surprising because most of the present political leaders made their careers during the Kuchma’s regime, including Tymoshenko, Yuschenko and Litvin. It is extremely hard for new politicians to enter the political scene, since election lists are formed by party leadership, and it is rumored that places in the upper part of lists cost several million dollars. The situation is aggravated through the fact Ukrainian authorities failed to conduct at least a moral, much less a judicial reckoning for the crimes of Kuchma’s regime, and many people meddled in election fraud in 2004, such as Viktor Yanukovych, Sergiy Kivalov, Andriy Kluyev, are among the Party of Regions leaders. Second, populism and void promises were typical for recent electoral campaigns and they will remain unpunished, since accountability mechanisms in the system of closed party lists are absent.

Last but not least, new elections will negatively affect Ukraine’s prospects of getting MAP at the next NATO summit, and also complicate the country’s European perspective. It’s not a good timing for instability in the conditions of the world economic crisis either.

• Uncategorized