New election called in politically turbulent Ukraine

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.

Tone deaf in Sarajevo, blind in Brussels

Eric Witte September 25th, 2008

Local elections will be held in Bosnia next month, and election season means that although a majority of Bosnians rate their top concerns as jobs and other bread-and-butter issues, their political class again is feeding them a steady diet of ethnic fear-mongering.  Nationalist politicians are literally scaring-up votes, and will, as always, be rewarded for it at the polls.  It’s a feature, not a bug of the Dayton constitution, which itself was designed by nationalist leaders of all three main ethnicities to suit their interests.   The dynamic will remain this way until officeholders are no longer elected from constituencies largely defined as mono-ethnic.  Mutual communal fear provides the best chances for Bosniak, Croat, and Serb nationalists to win under these circumstances, so they have a common vested interest in stoking it.

In typical fashion, Tuesday saw Haris Silajdzic, the Bosniak member of the country’s ridiculous tripartite, tri-ethnic presidency, addressing the UN General Assembly, where in thinly veiled terms he called on the world body to abolish the Republika Srpska (Bosnia’s Serb-dominated half).  While I share Silajdzic’s view that the RS was born of genocide, ending what Silajdzic termed “ethnic apartheid” will require political compromise with Serbs and Croats.  It cannot be done with fist-pounding demands to undo history.  Under the logic of Dayton politics, these only provide more fodder for Serb nationalist politicians, whose fierce reactions will scare more Bosniak voters to Silajdzic.

Miroslav Lajcak, the international community’s High Representative and EU Special Representative for Bosnia, made just this reasonable argument to the largely Bosniak readership of a Sarajevo daily yesterday: “You cannot state that you are pro Bosnia-Herzegovina, while treating one half of the country as hostile.”  So far, so good.  However, Lajcak went on to raise the specter that unless this changed, Bosnia could go the way of Czechoslovakia and Serbia-Montenegro:

“I have seen the same atmosphere that I see today in the Sarajevo-Banja Luka relations twice in my life. I saw it first in the Bratislava-Prague relations, and then in those between Podgorica and Belgrade, and we all know how that turned out.”

This would not be a bad message for Bosniak politicians behind closed doors, but uttered for the media has only encouraged RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik’s hope for his entity’s secession.  So rather than amplify the message that Bosniaks need to think about a future Bosnia that assuages the political fears - and indeed, meets the political needs - of other communities, Lajcak has actually contributed to the tedious, inflammatory campaign debate on RS secession vs. RS-abolition.

In the same interview Lajcak repeated the tired mantra that Bosnia’s politicians need to lead the way out of the crisis: “The international community, especially the EU, expects that 13 years after the war, Bosnia-Herzegovina should take matters into its own hands.”  This expectation completely ignores the rewarding of nationalist candidacies ingrained in the Bosnian election system.  Thirteen years after Dayton, the people of Bosnia might expect the EU and the broader international community to understand that if a new political compromise is to be achieved, the impetus will never come from Bosnian politicians whose interests are tethered to the status quo.  The EU, whose mission soon will be leading the international presence in Bosnia, has yet to demonstrate that it has any workable strategy to address the constitutional crux of Bosnia’s problems.  Worse, it often appears that the EU doesn’t even understand the problem.

Coronation in South Pacific Tonga - will democracy follow as promised?

Kurt Bassuener August 2nd, 2008

King George Tupou V was crowned on Friday in the Tongan capital Nuku’alofa to succeed his father, who died two years ago. His coronation drew 1000 guests, including the Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito, and the New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark. The ceremony, including 21-gun salute, a lavish banquet, and fireworks, cost $2.5 million. This in a country of 100,000, where one quarter of the population lives below the poverty line. The UN’s Human Development Report ranks Tonga at 55 – so near the upper quartile if all the world’s countries are ranked – and notes some impressive figures for the country – high literacy, clean water, middle income, and life expectancy at birth of nearly 73 years. Yet even given these achievements, $2.5 million is a lot of money for a society so small with such a significant population in poverty.

The biggest issue with the coronation is that the king will not be a mere figurehead, but a ruler. Freedom House rates the country as “partly free,” with political rights heavily circumscribed. Tonga’s system of governance concentrates power in the hands of the king and nobles, who appoint the government. King Tupou committed to reforms to submit most of parliament to direct elections following riots in 2006 sparked by a perceived effort to close parliament without amendments to allow for more directly elected MP seats. These riots targeted Chinese-run businesses and destroyed much of the capital center. Australian and New Zealand forces had to be deployed to restore order. King Tupou V promised more democracy in the aftermath of the violence. About half of the 700 arrested reported physical abuse by security forces.

In elections earlier this year, all 9 of the 33 parliamentary seats open to direct election (nine are selected by nobles and 15 by the king himself) were won by pro-democracy candidates. Six of these candidates were charged with sedition for initiating the riots. The king has said the 2010 elections will allow full democratic participation. This, of course, remains to be seen. Democracies like New Zealand sent representatives to King Tupou V’s superfluous coronation ceremony (he had been acting as king for two years), and PM Clark noted rather mildly before departing for the coronation that Tonga was preparing to give “more power” to elected representatives in time for the 2010 elections, and offered help in the Tongan democratization process. That sort of help is on order – democracies should help in these processes. But it seems the biggest problem here, as is often the case, is one of will. One hopes Tonga’s democratic neighbors (though none are “close” in the vastness of the Pacific), particularly New Zealand and Australia, press the king to open up the political system, and for him and Tongan nobles to step back from political management.

Azerbaijan: democracy and oil

Iryna Chupryna May 29th, 2008

Yesterday, on May 28, Azerbaijan celebrated the 90th anniversary of the establishment of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR). This day is celebrated in Azerbaijan every year since the restoration of independence in 1991. On May 28, 1918, Azerbaijan was proclaimed an independent state – the first democratic republic in the Muslim world. During its short existence, from May 1918 to April 1920, the first democratically elected Azerbaijani government worked on building independent and democratic state in Azerbaijan. It is noteworthy that ADR granted voting rights to women, earlier than many Western states, and it also functioned as a real multiparty democracy.

Nowadays, Azerbaijan is far from being even a fragile democracy – it is an authoritarian state under the strong presidential rule of Ilham Aliyev (who succeeded his father Geydar Aliyev in the rigged elections of 2003), where freedom of press and speech is seriously violated. In 2007, President Aliyev was identified as one of the “predators of press freedom” by Reporters without Borders. Presidential elections in this oil-rich state are scheduled for October 2008. And it already appears that oil is a trump of the incumbent president Ilham Aliyev in his bid for re-election. Ongoing severe repressions against opposition media and the scope of election fraud that can be expected during the ballot (judging from the previous elections in the country in 2003 and 2005) are likely to be forgiven for the strategic oil resources that Azerbaijan has, and for its foreign policy that is relatively independent from Russia and hence is very appreciated both by the USA and the EU.

The energy summit that was held in Kyiv on May 23 and attended by the presidents of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia and Poland, EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, top officials from Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania and from 30 other countries, the UN, OSCE, World Bank, and EBRD,  is a good illustration of how Azerbaijan’s President secures his legitimacy in “advance”. Aliyev was courted at the summit as a head of the state which, in contrast to other summit participants,  has rich energy resources, and therefore plays a leading role in the Krakow initiative on ensuring energy security launched by some of the participating states at the summit in Krakow on 11-12 May 2007. At this particular summit, Azerbaijan’s role was pivotal in planning an ambitious project to extend the existing Odessa-Brody pipeline through Poland to Gdansk on the Baltic, and to pump Azerbaijani and Kazakh oil from the Black Sea port of Odessa. According to Ukrainian president Yuschenko, “It is the most economical way to deliver Caspian oil to EU countries.”

The goal of the summit was to lessen the dependence of the EU on Russian energy resources. Taking into account that Kazakhstan (also a dictatorship and the future OSCE chair) is still indecisive and has intense cooperation with Russia, Azerbaijan is the crucial participant of the Krakow initiative. During Aliyev’s official visit to Ukraine on the eve of the summit, he was even awarded a state award of Ukraine “for his role in strengthening bilateral relations”. He is indeed considered a legitimate partner among this “energy club” of democratic states (most of them are also EU members), despite his brutal suppression of dissent at home. And, the most peculiar thing is that the next energy summit is scheduled for November this year in Baku – just next month after the presidential vote. It is very likely that, whatever happens, Aliyev’s victory would be recognized by his democratic allies in fighting for energy independence, including Ukraine and Georgia.

Democratic and dictatorial solidarity in southern Africa

Kurt Bassuener April 20th, 2008

South African dockworkers show solidarity with Zimbabweans by refusing to unload an arms shipment. Where is their government? Trying to clear that shipment through customs and dignifying an illegal partial vote recount.

Zimbabwe’s dictatorial President Robert Mugabe launched a blistering assault on the West, Britain in particular, in a speech to commemorate the anniversary of Zimbabwe’s foundation out of the racist outlaw state of Rhodesia, accusing them of bribing people to support the opposition.  “Zimbabwe will never be a colony again. Never, ever, shall we retreat.”  Banners surrounding the venue, which contained a handpicked audience to prevent unpleasant surprises, equated the opposition with imperialism, and continued the tired equation of western criticism and political opposition with neo-colonialism: “Zimbabwe has no place for sellouts”.

Unfortunately, this old saw continues to resonate with many African leaders – as does Mugabe’s fear of accountability for his abuses in office, beginning with massacres in the western Matabeleland region by the North Korean-trained 5th Brigade, answerable only to him, in the early-to-mid 1980s. Use of violence for political ends continues to the present day with attacks on the opposition and those suspected to be their supporters.

The ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Popular Front (ZANU-PF) just launched an Orwellian campaign entitled “Operation Mavhoterapapi – where did you put your X?”- i.e., how did you vote? Human Rights Watch reports that a Zimbabwean told them that he was told by ZANU-PF thugs that “next time you will vote wisely, now you know what we can do.”

Not that the official vote results have been released yet, some three weeks after the March 29 poll, which according to unofficial tallies recorded from protocols posted at polling stations – a first – the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai, won in the parliamentary race for certain, and perhaps outright in the presidential poll as well. To remedy this unpleasant choice of the people, votes are being recounted this weekend in 23 districts – mostly those won by the MDC, some won by Mugabe’s party by up to 80 percent, presumably to amp-up the margin, as was done in Ukraine’s east in 2004 by “the candidate of power,” Viktor Yanukovych. South Africa’s government has sent observers to watch this flagrantly manipulative exercise. Today, MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti appealed for external intervention, and called the recount “mendacious and illegal,” alleging ballot box tampering.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Saturday asked “where are the Africans? Where are their leaders and the countries in the region, what are they doing?”

He called for African leaders to address the Zimbabwe crisis squarely, referring back to the still fragile case of Kenya, where he successfully mediated between the government, fingered for electoral irregularities by EU monitors, and the opposition, whose leader unfortunately mobilized his supporters for violence which immediately took on a tribal cast against the dominant Kikuyu tribe – or at the very least did little to restrain them. Thankfully, the MDC in Zimbabwe has not followed suit despite being on the sharp end of government assaults, though a senior figure noted ominously today that his party was trying to prevent its supporters from being “seduced” into violence in what he termed a “war situation” in which he claims ten MDC supporters have been killed. “If democracy fails in Zimbabwe, what options are you leaving to the people of Zimbabwe?” The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights states that over 200 people have been treated for serious injury as a result of political violence over the campaign and post-election period. Human Rights Watch yesterday charged that “ZANU-PF members are setting up torture camps to systematically target, beat, and torture people suspected of having voted for the MDC in last month’s elections.”

Annan’s pointed call was clearly directed at South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki, who infamously declared in a visit to Mugabe before an emergency SADC meeting on the Zimbabwe situation that there was “no crisis.” Mugabe himself petulantly did not attend the meeting in Lusaka, Zambia. In criticism that has thus far been a rarity, but hopefully will begin a trend among SADC’s democracies, Botswanan Foreign Minister Phandu Skelemani

criticized Mbeki: “Everyone agreed that things are not normal, except Mbeki. Maybe Mbeki is so deeply involved that he firmly believes things are going right. But now he understands that the rest of SADC feels this is a matter of urgency and we are risking lives and limbs being lost. He got that message clearly.” Skelemani called for a far larger SADC election observer mission than was fielded for the first round in the event of a presidential run-off. “People with more credibility need to be sent. If you send the same team you’ll not be able to cover the whole country and you have to make sure that there is an observer at every polling station. The SADC team will need to be beefed up.” Zimbabwe opposition-oriented blogs are alleging detailed government plans to steal these runoffs, slated for May 26, employing organized violence against opposition activists. The African Union today called for election results to be released “without further delay.”

Botswana wants a stronger regional response, feeling the pressure from refugee waves fleeing desperate poverty and hunger, but it seems outnumbered by others who are practicing malign neglect (South Africa) or actively backing Mugabe (Angola, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of Congo). It’s noteworthy that Mugabe has sent troops to each of the latter three countries, most egregiously in Congo a decade ago – a very lucrative proposition for him and his army. Angola reportedly offered to return the favor last year by offering to send 2500 of its infamous “Ninja” paramilitary police to act as a praetorian guard for Mugabe. The Ninjas have been deployed as MPLA President Eduardo dos Santos’ presidential guard since 1979. Angola’s oil wealth is helping insulate it from international criticism for its own dictatorship, closing down a UN Human Rights Council mission which criticized the government for torture and other abuses.

South Africa’s President Mbeki stood by his “no crisis” remarks late last week, calling for dialogue in Zimbabwe, while his own African National Congress (ANC) party’s leader, Jacob Zuma, who defeated him as party leader last year, has criticized the conduct of the Zimbabwean election, calling for the release of the election results on April 9, and also meeting with Tsvangirai.

But South Africa’s active union movement, long supportive of their Zimbabwean colleagues, showed admirable solidarity this weekend by refusing to unload a vessel loaded with Chinese arms and munitions – including millions of rounds of 7.62mm rounds for AK-47/Type56 assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades, and mortar rounds – destined for Zimbabwe’s government, and vowed to stand their ground if others tried to unload the vessel.   “If they bring in replacement labor to do the work, our members will not stand and look at them and smile,” said Randall Howard, general secretary of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union. He rightly called the arms shipment “grossly irresponsible” and that the “South African government cannot be seen as propping up a military regime.”

The South African government protested that there was nothing illegal about the shipment, which may have been technically true, but certainly not responsible statecraft, given the likelihood of the use of these munitions against Zimbabwean civilians. Despite all this, South Africa’s government was working overtime to ensure that the shipment cleared customs. Yet a legal injunction filed by an Anglican archbishop to transport the arms across the border into Zimbabwe was upheld by South Africa’s High Court. The arms were rerouted according to some reports to Mozambique, which would make logistical sense due to proximity and railroad links. Other early reports named Angola as the destination. In neither Maputo nor Luanda is there likely to be similar labor or civic resistance to unloading the arms.

The government of Thabo Mbeki has repeatedly shown – and not just on Zimbabwe next door – that his loyalties are African first and democrat second…if that.

Briefly noted…

Eric Witte April 5th, 2008

  • Morgan Tsvangirai, the Movement for Democratic Change candidate for Zimbabwe’s presidency, is warning that President Robert Mugabe is preparing to deploy his security forces around the country to intimidate the population ahead of a run-off vote as the election commission still has not released official results from the first round. With Zimbabwe on edge and the MDC calling for international action to prevent violence, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, which surely has the greatest external leverage over Mugabe, is arguing that “it’s the time to wait.” Mbeki has been waiting in deference to Mugabe ever since he succeeded Nelson Mandela.
  • According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Burma’s proposed new constitution has leaked to the press and public. It would leave the military in ultimate control and ban Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from the presidency. How will the international community respond if this report is accurate?
  • French authorities have arrested Mohammed Bacar, the renegade leader of Comoros who refused to leave power and prompted an intervention by the African Union and Comoran troops. Bacar was arrested in the French territory if Reunion following an extradition request from the Comoran government.
  • France’s Human Rights Minister, Rama Yade, is denying that she told the newspaper Le Monde that President Nicolas Sarkozy had placed three conditions on his attendance at the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics - all related to Tibet. Meanwhile Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is calling on President George W. Bush to consider boycotting the opening ceremonies. According to the New York Times, Pelosi said “that if the International Olympic Committee wanted to portray the Games as a gathering that transcends sports, its members should hold the host country to high human rights standards.” The White House continues to insist that Bush will attend.

More brilliant American diplomacy

Kurt Bassuener March 28th, 2008

The Bush administration could probably write a primer on how to lose friends and alienate people in the Islamic world. To that we can add a chapter of “how to make newly inaugurated democrats look bad – and have it adversely affect your interests,” with a pushy maneuver that a leader of Pakistan’s new democratic coalition, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, called “ham handed.” The New York Times’ Jane Perlez gave an excellent account on Wednesday, and the Times editorializes on it today.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte insisted on meeting Nawaz Sharif while Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani was being inaugurated, despite being told that the day was an inopportune time for the U.S. to meet the government. Apparently, Negroponte’s schedule was so fixed that he couldn’t work around the government’s formation. The Pakistani press roundly pilloried the American move: one headline read “Hands Off Please, Uncle Sam,” and another journalist noted that “Here are the Americans…trying to dictate terms.”

But Negroponte and Assistant Secretary for South Asia Affairs Richard Boucher got a cool reception from Nawaz, who refused to give them “a commitment” on fighting terrorism, and questioned American methods that, in his view, had turned Pakistan into a “killing field”.

Naturally, the two also met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who has had the backing of the Bush administration since soon after September 11. The Bush administration was widely seen as having worked to engineer a rapprochement between Musharraf and the late Benazir Bhutto to give his government a more democratic veneer, at the expense of a truly democratic electoral test. When that electoral test came in the wake of Bhutto’s assassination, it swept Musharraf’s “king’s party” from power and brought secular-minded voters out in force.  Now Bhutto’s widower and her former rival Nawaz Sharif have forged a democratic coalition under the leadership of the well-regarded Gillani, who was jailed by Musharraf. He is already reversing some of the blatant abuses of the Musharraf era, such as the imprisonment of Chief Judge Iftikhar Chaudhry and nine of his colleagues. The parliament has a female speaker, Ms. Fahmida Mirza of Bhutto’s PPP.

All these developments are good news for Pakistan and are cause for celebration. But the Bush administration’s backing of Musharraf is not forgotten in Pakistan. One former member of Musharraf’s cabinet is quoted by Perlez “The people have spoken and rejected the religious parties, and at the same time they have rejected the people who will automatically nod to the United States.” Nawaz said the timing of the U.S. visit might be seen as Washington’s aim to remain “the political godfather behind Musharraf.” If American leverage is reduced with Islamabad on serious issues like the fight with Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, Washington only has itself to blame.

Blowback in Gaza

Kurt Bassuener March 6th, 2008

Vanity Fair’s April 2008 issue includes a devastating story by investigative journalist David Rose, “The Gaza Bombshell,” which details the efforts of the Bush Administration to overturn the results of the January 2006 Palestinian election. International observers from the European Union judged that election, won by Hamas, to have been “open and well run,” and the process was widely judged the freest in the Arab Middle East. When violence between Fatah and Hamas looked like it could spin out of control roughly a year ago, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accepted Saudi mediation and formed a unity government with Hamas, which was not the result the US Administration desired. The Vanity Fair article reports that the Bush Administration then pressed Fatah’s main Gaza enforcer, Mohammed Dahlan, to remove Hamas from power by force. The article cites documents apparently from the State Department’s senior officer in Jerusalem, pressing Abbas to sideline Hamas and overturn the election result. The result was the bloodbath in June, in which Hamas apparently pre-empted a coup against their control in Gaza by all but wiping-out Fatah’s institutional presence in Gaza.

The report was in heavy rotation on Al Jazeera’s English service on Tuesday, leading the news updates throughout the day. It was timed perfectly for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s visit to Egypt in the Bush Administration’s feeble attempt to restart the peace process. In her press conference, Rice did not deny the article’s contention that the US armed Fatah forces for their attempted seizure of power in Gaza. Nor did she openly confirm it. Rather, she said that Iran was arming Hamas, and that the Palestinian Authority should not be outgunned.

This effort to spark a Palestinian civil conflict in Gaza has only worsened the situation on the ground. A report released today by a coalition of humanitarian NGOs, titled “The Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion,” documents the human toll in Gaza as a result of an effective blockade by Israel, encouraged by the US, in what the report calls “a collective punishment against ordinary men, women, and children.” This harsh isolation has not brought to a halt the rocket attacks on southern Israel by a variety of militant groups in Hamas-controlled Gaza. And the terror attack committed just this evening in Jerusalem in a yeshiva cafeteria, in which at least 7 students were massacred and 35 wounded according to initial reports, will hardly calm the situation. Celebratory gunfire was heard from the Palestinian territories.

The Bush Administration’s belated peace effort, re-launched in Annapolis a few months ago, is going nowhere fast. Public revelation of the pressure and close coordination with Fatah will do nothing to bolster Mahmoud Abbas’s legitimacy among Palestinians, as he seeks to restart serious negotiations with Israel. The latest terror attack will hardly spur an already less-than-enthusiastic Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to negotiate seriously on settlements, Jerusalem, and the other stumbling blocks to Palestinian statehood.

A whole spectrum of factors were behind Hamas’s victory in the election that the Bush administration pressed on a reluctant Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority. But most important of these was the perception of an unaccountable, ossified, and fundamentally corrupt Palestinian administration. Dissatisfaction with Arafat’s Fatah government was among the main drivers for the second intifada that began eight years ago and brought the peace process to an effective halt. Hamas was perfectly positioned to be the prime beneficiary of the febrile stew of dashed expectations, continued – even accelerated – Israeli settlement activity, and massive graft and abuse of power by Arafat and his Tunis crowd, who were not in the occupied territories for the first intifada in the late 1980s and early 1990s. How the Bush Administration didn’t see this coming beggars belief, but it has proven repeatedly that it sees what it wants to see.

The revelation of the Gaza effort and the overall push to overturn the results of a democratic election – albeit won by an organization accurately deemed terrorist by the US and EU for its support of suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Israeli civilians – further reduces the credibility of the “freedom agenda” in the Middle East, and the Arab world in particular. If one is promoting democracy, one has to accept the results – and develop creative ways to deal with unpleasant realities. Repugnant as it is, Hamas is now a democratically legitimized political force in Palestinian society – ironically thanks to US pressure. And due to subsequent efforts, it is now stronger than ever – and more implacable. But there is no solution to the conflict without engaging them. Crafting a constructive approach would involve some mix of treating Hamas as a duly elected government, easing the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and responding to very real Hamas terrorism by targeting only combatants.

Eric Witte and I concluded in an article we wrote for the European Voice after the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon in the summer of 2006 – a similar American-backed effort to try and break Iranian-backed Hezbollah – that the EU would have to pick up the slack for democracy support in the Mideast, since “any US assistance to beleaguered secular democrats in the Arab world has become politically radioactive. With American credibility in shreds, more responsibility now rests with other democracies.” It’s hard to believe that American credibility could have waned even further since then, but it has.

One hopes that the next occupant of the White House will undertake a stronger effort to achieve a peaceful solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which continues to poison the discourse throughout the region, and gives authoritarian regimes an easy and emotional diversion for their own unaccountable governance.

How to assess “the will of the people” in a crooked election?

Kurt Bassuener March 5th, 2008

The Russian electoral process, and the Western reaction to it, made me reflect on a trope of election assessments.

You can see it in in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) post-election statement and much of the commentary throughout the media.

It’s the idea that an election result, even though the process leading to it is flawed, still represents the popular will (or words to that effect), or that candidate X would have won anyway, despite irregularities.

There is some mathematical basis for these statements. But when does one start measuring? If the proverbial deck is stacked in favor of a candidate well in advance of election day with media dominance, the power of the state apparat behind you (termed “administrative resources” in the post-Soviet space), electoral administration is slanted, etc. – i.e., there is no way the playing field is level – how can the people have made a free and informed choice in a democratic process? These statements therefore seem presumptuous to me.

On top of that, there is the seemingly irresistible imperative to ensure a crushing victory over the opponent. The Medvedev victory was bad enough, but there have been far worse examples in the former Soviet space. My own memory goes back to Aleksandr Lukashenko’s “beautiful and elegant” victory in September 2001, when he won by 75%, officially. He could have won a technically clean (though certainly not fair because of his state control) election by a reasonable margin, but he felt he just had to make it crushing. In the Russian presidential “election,” it was important to ensure turnout was high to connote legitimacy, despite the lack – by design – of any serious opposition.

The fact that long-term election observation of the type conducted by OSCE-ODIHR (in advance of fielding a far larger group of short-term observers for the actual election day) is more likely to expose the strings being pulled – slanted media environment, unfair campaign conditions, intimidation of state employees, students, etc. – is the main reason that Russia and its CIS partners are so in favor of changing election monitoring methodology and shifting toward strictly parachute short-term observation.

Is José Manuel Barroso committed to Russian democracy?

Eric Witte March 3rd, 2008

In a profile appearing in today’s Financial Times, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso is quoted as saying, “Because of my own experience in Portugal, to me Europe means, above all, freedom - but also an ideal of solidarity.”

Russians who oppose Vladimir Putin and his anointed successor Dmitri Medvedev might be excused for doubting Barroso’s commitment to solidarity in the name of their freedom.  As a delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe noted, problems with candidate registration cast doubt on how free Sunday’s elections were, and vast media and other state support for Medvedev calls into question their fairness.  Today, as riot police cracked down on opposition protestors in Moscow, one man told the Associated Press: “Fifteen years ago I wouldn’t have thought that my children would be growing up in a country that reminds me so much of the Soviet Union.”  Ukrainians may well also have been recalling Soviet days under Moscow’s rule today, as Russian gas monopoly Gazprom slashed deliveries to Ukraine by a full quarter within hours of Medvedev’s victory.  This surely grabbed the attention of Brussels, recalling disruptions in Russian gas supplies to the EU at the beginning of 2006.

Whether the Gazprom disruption was intended as a shot across the bow or not, when the European Commission released a statement from Barroso today (link not yet available), he congratulated Medvedev on his election but made no reference to its democratic deficit.  For Barroso, Europe may mean freedom, but Russia - and its authoritarian leaders - increasingly mean energy.