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.

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Iryna Chupryna October 5th, 2008

The EU-Ukraine summit in September became another defeat of Ukraine’s democracy, after the April NATO Summit in Bucharest. This summit failed to give Ukraine any clear perspective, even in the remote future. While Ukraine expected to conclude an association agreement already this year, this issue was postponed for a year. It has been rumoured that recent political turmoil in Ukraine, namely the collapse of the ruling coalition and the threat of another snap parliamentary election, contributed to the EU’s reluctance to open a door for Ukraine. But the EU fails to realize that it has enough leverage to help Ukraine on its hard way on the consolidation of democracy. Namely, in contrast to NATO integration of Ukraine, which is supported less by the half of Ukrainians, the idea of European integration is supported by a majority. So the European Union has a strong potential of unifying Ukraine, providing the unity of purpose for policy. The passive attitude of the EU to Ukraine might backfire with the setback of democracy and the growth of  Russian influence in that Eastern European state.

After the collapse of the ruling coalition in early September the situation in Ukraine remains unsettled. Even if it manages to return to the previous coalition format and to avoid new elections, the coalition between the Our Ukraine and BYuT would be very fragile, with a very slight majority over the opposition. The fact is that Ukraine is a divided country in linguistic, cultural, and socio-political aspects. It looks like the way out of the impasse for Ukraine would be a pan-Ukrainian coalition uniting pragmatic politicians of both pro-Russian and pro-Western political forces who would put aside divisive issues and focus on the economy, public administration, the fight against corruption and similar issues. A number of politicians such as Yatseniuk, Yekhanurov, Grytsenko hopefully will be able to push through a political project of that type. Arseniy Yatseniuk, parliament’s speaker, has already announced his plans to launch a new political project.

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Kurt Bassuener October 3rd, 2008

Soon after Eric posted the link below to the excellent Joshua Kurlantzick article, “Monster’s Ball,” the two of us discussed some of the themes therein.  The reliance on particular leaders seems a constant and repeated error throughout American statecraft, nearly always ending in tears.

One factor seems very clear to me - that the Bush administration was far more concerned with having talking points to buttress the assertion that “freedom (was) on the march,” even before his second inaugural address, than it was with the adherence to democratic principles. Furthermore, it conflates “democratic” with “pro-Western,” or “pro-American,” and these don’t always go hand in hand.  And when a regime is undemocratic and aligned with the US, it’s a safe bet the population will rightly see the US as complicit in their oppression.  The primary concern, despite all discussion of the paradigm shift away from backing “our SOBs” that came with Bush’s 2003 NED address, has been to have governments aligned with the US.

Post-Rose Revolutionary Georgia in particular came at an opportune time for the Bush administration, which was scrambling to find another rationale for the invasion of Iraq.  So the Saakashvili administration and the Bush administration were in a symbiosis, with Washington not wanting to point to Georgia’s increasing bellicosity or democratic transgressions, both of which might have been reined-in with a bit of friendly pressure early on.  The fact that they were not helped lead to the debacle of August’s “five day war” with Russia, which saw the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia leave Georgia’s orbit - even before the war legally Georgian territory but not under physical control - probably for good.  But Bush was happy to adopt and keep Georgia as a poster child - never mind the more complicated reality.  Georgia of course deserved support, but not uncritical support.

Yet the sorts of blatant hypocritical mistakes that gutted the credibility of the “freedom agenda” from the start were, as Kurlantzick notes, the relationships with such “friendly dictators” as Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, recipient of $2 billion a year in guaranteed aid.  That massive potential US leverage has never been employed to press Mubarak’s brutal and sclerotic regime to open up, and is the subject of a fascinating new book, Inside Egypt - The Land of the Pharoahs on the Brink of a Revolution, by John R. Bradley (recently banned in Egypt, natch).

Near the close of his angry book, Bradley cites the bizarre position of Egypt’s beleagured liberal democrats with a recounting of the experience of Hisham Kassem, winner of the National Endowment for Democracy’s Democracy Award a year ago:

These conflicting goals (democracy and transparency along with stability) were captured in the rather bizarre experience of one Hisham Kassem, an Egyptian human rights activist who, in October 2007, was one of four international activists given the prestigious Democracy Award of the National Endowment for Democracy.  Kassem found the experience woefully depressing. “To see the president of the United States in person and his more or less lack of interest in what is happening politically in Egypt left me without any doubt that this whole [democracy] program was over,” he told Reuters after collecting his award.  Kassem said that although the president asked about reformers in the ruling NDP (to which he replied “Sorry, there are no reformers in the NDP”), Bush was mainly interested in the position of Islamists in Egypt.  Kassem made clear that the government had made it impossible for secular movements to operate, leaving the field open to the Islamists: “There is no alternative now for the people, given that that Islamists operate out of mosques while secular parties are not allowed to operate at all.” With the difficult economic situation, he added, “I am worried Egypt will become a theocracy by 2010.” Apparently that comment finally got Bush’s full attention, and he seemed rather perplexed that American policy was not working, noting: “We give your country $2 billion a year in order to keep it stable and prevent it from turning into a theocracy.”  He looked, Kassem said, quite dismayed.

Some would argue Kassem did himself no favors in meeting with Bush and his top advisors.  For the unfortunate reality is that the American push for democracy is now perceived as having been insincere at best, hypocritical at worst.  Which is hardly surprising, when for the president the purpose of the payoff to Mubarak’s regime is stability rather than reform.

Bradley further quotes another Egyptian human rights activist, Ahmed Said al-Islam, as saying:

The war on terror is undermining democracy advocates and strengthening Arab dictatorships…The latter are using it to put off reforms and arguing that being pro-reform means siding with the enemies of the state.

American credibility in democracy promotion is so denuded after the Bush years that respected Carnegie Endowment scholar Tom Carothers says it needs to be ”decontaminated” to regain credibility in a new administration.  Harsh words, but apropos, I believe. 

The US, having beat the democracy drum so loudly, is front and center in being cited for hypocrisy, but sadly not alone. In the case of Egypt, French President Sarkozy asked Mubarak to co-chair the Mediterranean Union summit last summer - though it’s fair to note that none of the potential members from the southern littoral of the Mediterranean really fits the bill as a democracy.  The larger point to be made is that the democratic world has no clear strategy to employ the leverage it has to promote its values.  The US and EU remain divided on democracy support largely because the Bush administration has shot its credibility on the subject.

No matter what the result of the US presidential election, the bottom line is that the EU and the US have to collaborate in that endeavor if it is to bear fruit and help reverse authoriarian capitalism’s increasing appeal.

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Eric Witte October 1st, 2008

Following the August 6 coup in Mauritania, the United States, World Bank, and European Union announced the suspension of non-humanitarian aid to the Sahelian country.  As I noted at the time, while this was welcome, the real leverage came with lucrative international fishing and mining deals in Mauritania.  It was encouraging then, when a spokesperson for EU Aid and Development Commissioner Louis Michel stated in late August that Michel would request suspension of a fishing arrangement worth approximately €75 million per year “until there is a resolution to the situation”.

In mid-September it appeared that EU and French resolve in facing down the Mauritanian junta could be wavering.  Now it appears that it has caved altogether.  Following a meeting of EU fisheries ministers this Monday and Tuesday, the French EU presidency issued a statement that was cryptic on the Mauritanian issue.  It stated that the Agricultural and Fisheries Council “authorised the Commission to proceed with the payment of the funds provided for by the EU-Mauritania fishing agreement, provided that all the requisite conditions have been met.”  Requisite conditions, meaning restoration of the democratic order?  It turns out that the conditions are nothing of the sort:

For the moment, the European Commission — which regulates EU fishing policy — has decided to suspend the payment.

Under the terms of the agreement, once Mauritania has notified Brussels of the funds’ non-arrival, the Commission has 30 working days to transfer its payment. If it doesn’t do that in time, Mauritania gains the right to suspend the whole deal.

That 30-day period runs out on Oct. 15.

“We are making use of the time we have to ascertain that the terms of the agreement concerning the uses of the money that we give to Mauritania will be adhered to and be respected, before we effect the payment,” EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg said.

“If we have confirmation from Mauritania that they respect the terms of the agreement, then payment will be effected within the deadline,” he said in an interview. “But we need confirmation that what was agreed with the previous government will be respected.”

So as long as the illegitimate junta fulfills technical terms agreed by the democratically elected government, it can enjoy the economic benefits of the deal.  Either the EU position has significantly weakened since the Aid and Development Commissioner’s demand was for “a resolution to the situation”, or those were just weasel words to begin with. 

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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.

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Kurt Bassuener September 23rd, 2008

Iryna Chupryna wrote an insightful analysis of the political situation on Ukraine as an issue of DPC Analyst, posted today.  The collapse of the “Orange” coalition of President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko seems destined to lead to new parliamentary elections - the third in three years, as Iryna noted.  Ukrainian voters, especially those who had high hopes from the victory of December 2004, are beginning to despair; many are tuning out of politics altogether.  Given the fact that the election results will probably not deliver a fundamental change to political order, but merely reshuffle the existing deck, it is easy to sympathize with their frustration.  Only Ukrainians, primarily in the east and south of the country, who voted for the Party of Regions, headed by Viktor Yanukovych, do not feel disappointed or let down by their leaders, and they form the largest single bloc.  Given the fact that Yanukovych not only conspired with President Kuchma and his chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk (with considerable assistance from Vladimir Putin and now-President Dmitri Medvedev) to steal the 2004 election, this is a nearly incomprehensible result.  But it is nonetheless true.  What was won in the cold streets of Kyiv’s Maidan in November and December seems to have been mortally wounded through infighting, ego battles, and and unwillingness to put the public interest first.

No one side in the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko conflict is solely guilty.  My own view is to have more disappointment in Yushchenko, since I expected better from him, while Yulia Tymoshenko’s brand of populism proved to be a double-edged sword, but a known one throughout.  The pairing was absolutely essential during the presidential campaign after Yushchenko was poisoned, with Tymoshenko taking on the heavy travel schedule that the Yushchenko campaign planned to circumvent the media blockade against it until Yushchenko could return.  Tymoshenko was also very insistent on the monitoring the vote count.  She was a crowd-pleaser on the Maidan, and judging from the reception on New Year’s 2005 (where Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who once studied in Kyiv and speaks fluent Ukrainian, also spoke) at the Maidan, the bigger star. 

The coalition was difficult from the start, given so many egos and interests to balance.  Even from Spring 2005, it appeared that Yushchenko didn’t have a strong enough grip on his administration and government.  And it went downhill from there.

What didn’t happen, but must if Ukraine is to prosper and progress toward integration with the EU (a door which still remains closed for the moment, unfortunately - the EU has enormous capacity to use conditions for membership to spur the necessary reforms to Ukraine’s still sclerotic governance and administration) is some effort to bridge the east-west divide in Ukrainian politics.  This divide began to be ameliorated during Kuchma’s presidency, and the great perversity of his attempt to retain power vicariously was that he was willing to scuttle his greatest achievment as president for a decade - an otherwise increasingly corrupt and sordid reign.  Nonetheless, due to the combined factors of incoherence in the ruling coalition, the fact that the Party of Regions is still led by the polarizing Viktor Yanukovych, an increasingly polarized international political situation and a lack of EU strategy toward Ukraine, the country remains split essentially along the lines of the 2004 election.

There was talk when I was in Ukraine a year ago, before parliamentary elections, that sub rosa efforts were ongoing to hive off the main body of the Party of Regions under Donetsk-based tycoon Rinat Akhmetov, and then forging a Our Ukraine coalition with this party, leaving a rump PoR and the Tymoshenko Bloc out of power.  Odd as it sounds, many “Orange” veterans were in favor of such a coalition, for only an easterner could sell NATO membership the the south and east, but generally for the potential to knit the country back together behind a common agenda to pursue EU membership.

It remains to be seen what that United Center party will accomplish, but it is hard to see a way out of the current impasse without new players and new ideas.

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Eric Witte September 21st, 2008

Douglas Muir makes a good point regarding the war in Georgia over at A Fistful of Euros:

What’s interesting - and sort of depressing - is that the war seems to have damaged the prospects for liberal democracy for all four parties. Not that those prospects were bright in Russia or South Ossetia anyhow, but still: all the participants are seeing a tightening of press controls, a strengthening of the nationalist line, and a general boost to the authoritarian pretensions of the current ruling class. And this is likely to get worse before it gets better… if it ever does get better.

Indeed, the prospects for democracy in Russia, South Ossestia and Abkhazia have long looked bleak.  And Muir is right that Georgia has undergone democratic setbacks as well, dating to before the Russian invasion. 

With the West hoping to stave-off Russian control of Georgia, President Mikheil Saakashvili is probably much less likely to come under western pressure with regard to his own democratic shortcomings.  That seems to be a natural reaction to increased polarization and tension between the West and Russia.  But does it make sense?  With Saakashvili’s dependence on the EU and US greater than ever, Washington, Brussels, and European capitals have greater theoretical leverage to insist that he consistently adhere to democratic ideals.  In the end, ensuring that the moral divide between Tbilisi and Moscow is not muddied by Saakashvili’s authoritarian streak would help Georgia to sustain greater sympathy in the West.

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Eric Witte September 18th, 2008

IRIN news takes a look today at the potential long-term effect of a broad freeze in western development aid to Mauritania following the August 6 coup.  Some of that aid, for example from France, is already in the pipeline and continues to be disbursed, while other aid has stopped cold.  IRIN reports that an EU-funded road project is on hold, and World Bank staff have left the country.  The head of the EU delegation in Nouakchott is quoted as saying:

“It will take at least six months to one year for these aid cuts to really affect state operations [under the control of coup leaders]. And this is even truer as we anticipate a rise in oil revenue in the coming months. I think therefore military leaders can, withstanding everything else, survive the shock of this belt-tightening [reduction in donor assistance], which will not affect the everyday lives of Mauritanians.”

On the other hand, the UN chief in Mauritania warns: “With the potential cutbacks, in the medium to long term, there is potential for greater hardship and more vulnerability [in Mauritania] to humanitarian crises.”

This may well be true, but because international emergency and humanitarian assistance is continuing, there is no short-term humanitarian crisis.  Despite significant popular support for the coup, Mauritanian development is best served in the long-term through democratization, including establishment of the rule of law.  The more pressure the international community can bring to bear on the revenue streams of the junta in the short term, the greater the chances that the democratic order can be restored, and medium-to-long-term suffering of the Mauritanian people averted.  There is a clear correlation between undemocratic rule and corruption.  If the junta is allowed to continue in power, Mauritania’s medium-to-long-term development can be expected to suffer, as it has for decades.  In short, accomodating the new regime in the name of humanitarianism would be self-defeating. 

It should be noted that the coup plotters accuse deposed president Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi of rampant corruption.  If Abdallahi is restored to power, the opposition can pursue legal options against him, perhaps even leading to his ouster. As part of the deal for Abdallahi’s restoration to the presidency, the international community perhaps could provide material support to any investigation of the allegations against him that is conducted in compliance with the Mauritanian constitution. 

Meanwhile, however, the pressure should mount for the junta to give up power.  The IRIN report linked above cites the EU representative in Nouakchott as saying that no EU funds have been paid for the lucrative EU-Mauritanian fishing deal that had been due to take effect at the end of August, and which I blogged about again yesterday.  That’s good news, but there’s still no word on official suspension of the deal, which EU Aid and Development Commissioner Louis Michel requested last month.

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Eric Witte September 17th, 2008

As I noted last month, EU Aid and Development Commissioner Loius Michel was requesting suspension of a 75 million Euro/year fishing agreement with Mauritania in a bid to step up international pressure on the illegitimate regime following the August 6 coup.  The issue was set to be discussed by the Council of the European Union this month.  The September meeting of EU foreign ministers has come and gone, and it appears that the fishing agreement remains intact.  In place of anything consequential, EU foreign ministers did agree, however, to begin “consultations” and a “constructive dialogue” with the Mauritanian junta. 

Meanwhile, representatives of the French EU presidency met with Ramtane Lamamra, the African Union’s Commissioner for Peace and Security.  According to a statement by EU Presidency, they agreed on these points:

- the need for the immediate release of President Abdallahi and for the institutions to resume normal operations;

- the need to work towards a solution to the crisis with the agreement of the different Mauritanian parties;

- the readiness of the African Union, the European Union, and the International Organization of la Francophonie to accompany Mauritania’s efforts in this direction.

That’s thin gruel compared to last month’s tough talk about withdrawal of the lucrative fishing deal.  Is it too cynical to recall in this context that France is one of the five EU member states whose fishing fleets are allowed access to Mauritania’s rich waters under that deal?

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Eric Witte September 17th, 2008

The European Council on Foreign Relations released a report today, A Global Force for Human Rights? An Audit of European Power at the UN [PDF], which finds that the influence of the European Union at the United Nations has markedly declined over the past ten years.  At 80 pages, I haven’t had time to read more than the press release and executive summary, but it looks to be well worth the read.  Authored by Richard Gowan and Franziska Brantner, the report finds that support of EU positions in the General Assembly has declined from around 70% to around 50%.  They detected a similar drop-off in EU influence on the Human Rights Council and in the Security Council.  The shift has been accompanied by corresponding increases in the influence of China and Russia, each finding their support in the General Assembly rising from around 50% to around 75% over the same period.  The authors note several reasons for this troubling dynamic, including these (from the press release): “Europe has lost ground because of a reluctance to use its leverage, and a tendency to look inwards - with 1,000 coordination meetings in New York alone each year - rather than talk to others. It is also weakened by a failure to address flaws in its reputation as a leader on human rights and multilateralism.”

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