The Quiet Elections

Published in New Eastern Europe 26th September 2014

http://www.neweasterneurope.eu/articles-and-commentary/1340-the-quiet-elections

As winter approaches, Ukraine moves to plug its democratic legitimacy gap.

You could forgive the residents of Kiev for having other things on their minds besides the upcoming elections to the Verkhovna Rada. With gas deliveries from Russia having long halted, many Kievans have been living without hot water for the past couple of months as the country tries to fill its gas storage facilities. The annual switching on of the central communal heating system has been delayed two weeks to the beginning of November. Gazprom has reduced its gas deliveries to those countries providing a potential lifeline to Ukraine via a reverse flow, Poland and Slovakia. A Russian government advisor, Sergey Markov, has even predicted that Ukraine’s government will collapse in the winter. As with the prophecies of Ukraine’s descent into “civil war”, Russian predictions are often statements of intent. Ukraine’s government needs to be in the best shape possible if Russia is going to attempt to freeze them out, so questions about its legitimacy matter.

Ukraine is also a country at war. From the mobile mechanisms that enable donations to the Ukrainian army to the men standing on the road collecting money to relentlessly paint the country’s railings and street furniture yellow and blue in defiance of the would-be occupiers, the war is ever present. Where you might have expected to see early discussion about the upcoming elections, TV news reports have unsurprisingly been dominated by the daily national and personal tragedies of the conflict. This has led some commentators to question the wisdom of holding a vote in such circumstances. The presidential elections also took place in a similar situation with election coverage slotted in between the latest news about the Anti-Terror Operation.

President Petro Poroshenko’s strong mandate from this election and his growing reputation with the West have put him in a strong position, although it is bound to have diminished somewhat following the toxic, but perhaps unavoidable, Minsk agreement and the delay to the EU-Ukraine trade agreement (what was simultaneously “signed” September 16th in Kiev and Strasbourg was in fact only around one-fifth of the original Association Agreement text). Beyond the presidency, Ukraine’s democratic credentials don’t look so clever. Ukrainian society has had a new injection of civic activism and engagement, but this is not reflected in the country’s parliament. Unsuspecting politicians may now find themselves being “caught” by journalists in interviews or thrown into skips, but their existence in parliament is not so different as to what it was before.

This situation goes back to the real coup d’etat of Ukrainian politics, the parliamentary coup of 2010, where the Constitutional Court, which had previously ruled otherwise, ruled that deputies were free to move between parliamentary factions. Whilst this is entirely acceptable in constituency-based systems like the UK, Ukraine’s deputies had been elected on a closed list system, so changing factions was like your vote growing legs and walking away from you, and hence Yanukovych induced deputies from the Orange parties of Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko to form a loyalist parliament on which to build his power vertical. The turncoat deputies were dubbed “tushki”, or animal carcasses.

The victory of the EuroMaidan might have ushered in a new era of openness and civic engagement but, as Yanukovych fled the country, something not very dissimilar took place in the current parliament. As the emergency government formed around Prime Minister Aresiny Yatsenyuk and Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov, deputies, particularly those from the Party of Regions, hurried to either join the new bloc or become independent. Thus, whilst Poroshenko is the legitimately elected President, the parliament we see today is in fact little more than a group of “reverse tushki”. So whilst the new government is clearly no “junta”, it certainly has a democratic legitimacy problem that successful parliamentary elections are absolutely vital to solve.  

The current parliament has also inherited its predecessor’s poor standards of parliamentary procedure. The practice of piano player voting, where deputies push the voting buttons of their missing colleagues, still continues. The recent vote on the ceasefire law was held in a closed session and rumours abound that the screen that shows the voting results might even have been tampered with. Perhaps there is an argument that in the time of war certain measures must be pushed through (many democracies experience a temporary democratic deficit in times of war), but such actions are unlikely to give Ukraine’s democracy a clean bill of health.

In addition to the oncoming freeze and parliament’s democratic inadequacies, Poroshenko must be aware that his initial popularity can quickly nosedive in Ukraine. The support for Yushchenko had all but evaporated within six months as president. Therefore, Poroshenko must see the need to use what momentum he still has as quickly as possible. Current polls back his bloc to do well, despite recent controversial decisions.

There are some ways in which the elections will not be a departure from the Yanukovych era. They will be held under the same election law as the 2012 poll, a mixture of party list and geographical constituency mandates that was designed to skew the vote in Yanukovych’s favour. Clearly, elections for the electoral districts in the occupied territories will not take place, meaning out of 450 seats, 15-20 will be empty. In one sense, maintaining those “empty chairs” would be a powerful symbol that these regions remain, in the sense of international law, part of Ukraine. Ukraine must feel a duty to continue to represent those regions in some way. This is perhaps reflected in the fact that Mustafa Dzhemilev, exiled head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, itself now facing the prospect of exile, is on Poroshenko’s electoral list.

As in the previous elections, oligarchic clans are still likely to figure prominently, but this time different clans stand to benefit. Whereas at previous elections the Donbas clan came to the fore, they are now variously exiled or in the quagmire of the Russian-sponsored breakaway entity now being established there, although some are rumoured to be funding the Party of Development which is emerging from the ruins of the Party of Regions. It will be fascinating to see the extent to which Russian aggression and occupation have sliced through Ukraine’s traditional pro-western/pro-Russian cleavage. In the new parliament, Poroshenko and Dnipropetrovsk-based Ihor Kolomoyskyi look like the potential big winners. Parties and party groupings continue to be fluid even with just a month left to go. Vitali Klitschko’s UDAR has merged into Poroshenko’s group of pragmatists, whilst others collect around Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party or the slowly climbing People’s Front, Yatsenyuk’s new party. Figures from Ukraine’s past have apparently been manoeuvring themselves onto party lists by various means, but this will be a gamble, assuming the vote is substantially free and fair. Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party may conceivably even struggle to enter parliament.

Each western-leaning party will also have a handful of Maidan activists towards the top of its lists who may or may not turn out to be capable politicians, but should at least look on parliament’s procedural deficiencies in a new light. However, despite a myriad of options on the ballot paper, the party system arguably still will not be offering choices that truly reflect voters’ needs and preferences. Large shares of the vote at the previous election for the far right Svoboda and the first banned, now unbanned, Communists alarmed observers in 2012, but suggest that for many Ukrainians ideology is important, just as for other Europeans. The persistence of so-called “virtual parties” built around clans or individuals does little address this need.

It seems that Ukrainians continue to misguidedly seek the “good politician”, whereas evidence of the reform process across Central Eastern Europe tells us that in most cases it is the political system, not the quality of its politicians that is the decisive factor in reform-making, specifically the parliamentary system of the government. If Ukraine is to truly succeed, its political system needs to be a radical departure from anything seen thus far in the post-Soviet space.

As things stand, expect a quiet election as Ukrainians continue to fight and die for their country and for Ukraine’s political system to take incremental steps forward, if they can survive the winter.

Parliamentary or bust

Ukraine’s new political system must be a radical departure from anything seen in the post-Soviet space

It’s not new for Ukrainians to want change. Just 9 years ago, it seemed the country was embarking on a change of direction and hopes were high. This time there is caution, and remembrance that the cost this time was far higher. The frosty reception Tymoshenko has received following her release is the clearest indication of a wholehearted desire to ‘clean house’. Ukrainians at least know what they don’t want. But May’s elections will come soon and somebody needs to be steering the ship, however imperfect. Ukraine has before it a fresh sheet of paper, but it cannot aspire to build anyone’s utopia. Inclusivity and compromise are now the keys to the country’s survival and future prosperity.

One massive challenge is to engender a culture of constitutionalism. The current authorities face a legitimacy crisis. The capitulation of the previous authorities and their voting in significant numbers for new laws has created a disconcerting reverse of the ‘tushki’ phenomenon of 2010. The relationship between deputies and their electoral mandates is now tenuous, not forgetting that the parliamentary elections of 2012 were held to poor democratic standards. If Freedom House were to assess the country today, it would not be classed as free. It obviously all depends now on the coming May elections.

The first lesson that has to be learned is that politics can’t be any more about the personalities. The post-Soviet reflex of looking to a ‘strong leader’ has had disastrous results across the region for all to see. It’s time to challenge the Eurasian myth that ‘we are different’. This myth has already cost too many people in Eurasia their lives and freedoms.

Ukraine has to adopt a wholly parliamentary system of government of the type found across most of Europe. The President should be left only with the power of veto and to call new elections. A strong Prime Minister can adopt a ‘presidential style’, like Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair, but note Thatcher’s political demise in 1990. She was the ‘iron lady’, but when she lost the support of her party the power drained out of her overnight. It has been objectively shown that parliamentary systems, which have to by necessity take account of a wider range of stakeholders, have a better record of achieving reforms.

The party system needs reform too. Ukraine must ditch the ‘virtual parties’ which revolve solely around personalities and business interests, and embrace ideology. The high percentage of votes at the last election for the far left (Communists) and far right (Svoboda), although perhaps regrettable, told us that at least a quarter of Ukrainian voters chose to vote along ideological lines. We need to give the more moderate centre left and centre right populations that voice too. We will have to work with those who we may not totally agree with, but a party is a coalition of interests.

To have a parliamentary system also means adherence to parliamentary rules. Post-May 2014 there should be zero tolerance of ‘piano playing’, violence in the chamber, blocking the rostrum, or any such activities. Perhaps the Verkhovna Rada needs to be ‘refereed’, with deputies suspended for some time for breaches of protocol. Otherwise, the temptation to cut corners will be very acute, and we see clearly now the result.

To preserve the unity of Ukraine, we must think about how to bring all into the political process. There is a dilemma here. There is an imperative to establish new ground rules for politics in Ukraine, and that means a new constitution. Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is calling for the new constitution to be established only after elections, and for it to be subject to a referendum. That might sound reasonable enough, but there is a problem. If we look at how Yanukovych was able to take a wrecking ball to Ukraine’s constitutional structure in 2010, there is a strong argument for having the new rules in place first, but of course to have legitimacy, the whole country must be involved.

The oligarchs have a role to play here. They can continue to play a strong and influential role, just as wealthy backers of, for example, the Republicans do in America. However, in terms of the country’s assets they have to accept that their cup run is over. The EU could play a pivotal role here. Mikhael Saakashvili spoke recently about how the concrete threat of sanctions was a tipping point for many of Yanukovych’s supporters to pull the plug. If that threat hung over economic and political abuses more generally, this would limit the business elite to a role which was powerful but not excessive. What complicates this is the role of those oligarchs who failed to withdraw backing from the previous regime even as the situation deteriorated. It is more difficult to make a moral case for their continued involvement in the country’s politics, although we may find that it’s unavoidable.

How to accommodate the country’s regional differences needs much thought. At this time Ukraine lacks the political maturity for federalism, which would also leave parts of the country too vulnerable to outside interference. However, in issues such as language rights, it may make sense to allow some discretion at local level. In France, for example, minority languages can appear on street signs at the behest of local municipalities as long as the national language is also displayed (and the local municipality pays for it). This might actually be a good exercise in local democracy. Responsibility for celebrations of historical events, whether it be 9 May or the Ukrainian insurgency, should also be managed at local level, as nationally these issues have proved too divisive. Such emotive issues should not be propagandist fodder or tools for the country’s politicians any longer.

Some of the biggest issues still remain unanswered. Most significant is the threat to jobs in Eastern Ukraine from Putin’s now inevitable trade blockade. How do we explain to these people that this is not a reason to support Ukraine’s accession to the Customs Union, or to oppose democracy? Rather, it is an outrage that Putin is so content to exploit their jobs as a political tool, and they should be more angry about this than anyone. The impending gas price hikes are also a concern, although contingency plans such as reverse flow from Slovakia ought to now face fewer obstacles.

In dealings with Russia trust will be at an all time low, and Ukraine needs to protect itself. For the foreseeable future all high level talks between Ukraine and Russia should be hosted by a third country and adhere to diplomatic norms. We must not allow the degeneration into secret meetings and bullying that Putin-Yanukovych relations became. Plenty of work is needed into how to make Russia-Ukraine relations more transparent. The extent of Russian sabotage in Ukraine’s internal governance over the past several years is plain to see. More discussions need to be on the record and subjected to the greatest scrutiny.

Ukraine also needs to continue much of the patient hard work that in fact many of its institutions have already been doing. In the sphere of defence, it is rarely mentioned that the country, even under Yanukovych, was forming ever greater co-operation with NATO in many areas, and the previously announced transition to a professional army will probably now come to pass. European integration policy will also be salvageable after its 3 month hiatus, and with political will from the top the technical work will be able to proceed all the better.

Despite this, Ukrainians now realise that the future depends on them. The EU would be greatly welcomed as a guarantor to Ukraine’s European future, but it cannot be wholly relied upon. Following the logic of Saakashvili’s comments, had they acted earlier in the crisis, 100 more Ukrainians might still be alive today.