RIA Novosti November 25, 2004 LESSONS OF THE UKRAINIAN CRISIS Sergei KARAGANOV, chairman of the presidium of the Council of Foreign and Defense Policy, deputy director of the Institute of Europe (Russian Academy of Sciences)
I think both sides are guilty of violations at the presidential election in Ukraine, including some major ones. This is why we will never know the whole truth about the election. Both candidates apparently won a comparable number of votes and Ukraine has clearly split into east and west, which threatens social calm and could possibly threaten its statehood. A crisis in Ukraine is not in the interests of Europe, let alone Russia.
Despite the obviously serious confrontation, I do not think the sides will slide into the use of force. They have accumulated substantial experience of democratic development and it would be unacceptable for both sides to drown this major achievement in blood. Besides, Ukrainians are much more practical and cautious than Russians: They may hold many demonstrations, but rarely fight.
A great many people want to advise the Ukrainians about ways to overcome their crisis. I think this advice is useless and the Ukrainians will look for their own solution. Yet I would dare suggest one of the more peaceful models. I suggest a temporary moratorium on the election result until President Leonid Kuchma and the current parliament amend the constitution to limit the powers of the president and increase the powers of the premier. After that, the opposing political groups and the financial clans standing behind them should negotiate a distribution of posts.
I would give one more piece of advice to Russia and its Western partners: Do not view Ukraine as a farcical battlefield of the cold war. If you remember, everyone lost that war, including the official winners and the formal losers. And Ukraine will lose this war, too.
A few words about Russian policy with regard to the Ukrainian election. We could and had the right to prefer one of the candidates. But we madealmost all of the imaginable mistakes. Our campaigning took the form of a brazen commercial operation, which was bound to irritate even Russia's supporters in Ukraine. Moreover, political specialists managed to involve in their games even the top Russian leaders, who took a stand and hence weakened their long-term ability to influence the situation in Ukraine.
This does not mean that I approve of the interference (even if it happened in a much more subtle way) by our Western partners/rivals. However, in the final analysis, they must deal with their mistakes, while we must do something about ours. We did not do anything about the situation in Belarus, disgracefully allowing the referendum to take place, but acted overzealously in Ukraine, losing there even though, according to the Ukrainian Central Election Commission, our candidate won the election.
And lastly, there is no need to weep. The so-called pro-Russian candidate, if he wins with a minor margin and his victory is disputed, will never be able (and we should have expected this) to pursue the pro-Russian policy he had promised to pursue or wants to pursue. And the so-called pro-Western candidate, if he wins with a minor margin and his victory is disputed, will never be able to pursue an anti-Russian policy.
We need pause for breath to understand that politics is a serious matter and it must not be handed over to businessmen or incompetent officials and political scientists. The future of countries and nations depends on politics. We must at long last elaborate a long-term policy with regard to countries and regions of strategic importance to Russia, and we must pursue this policy consistently and professionally, as a great power should.
Mosnews.com November 25, 2004 Russian Political Scientist Blames Polish Conspiracy for Ukraine Election Crisis
Renowned Russian political scientist Sergei Markov told reporters in Moscow on Thursday that the ongoing political crisis in Ukraine was in fact a Polish conspiracy with the aim of imposing Polish patronage over Ukraine and thus raising Polish influence within the European Union.
“Yushchenko’s electoral campaign has been developed within the Polish diaspora abroad and its ideological basis was prepared by former U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and his two sons,” the Newsru.com web-site quoted Markov as saying.
Markov said that another ethnic Pole, Andrian Karatnitsky, the head of the U.S. foundation Freedom House, had hired Serbian spin doctors and brought them to Ukraine ahead of the presidential elections. (Another Russian political scientist, Gleb Pavlovsky, said in a Wednesday evening news broadcast on Russia’s RTR television channel that Yushchenko’s campaign had been prepared by the same specialists who prepared similar campaigns in Serbia and Georgia).
“The arrival of Lech Walesa and Aleksander Kwasniewski as intermediaries in the Ukraine negotiations would become a part of the Tbilisi-Belgrade scenario, as the objective of these intermediaries is not peace, but a passing of power to Yushchenko,” Markov said.
He added that the original plan is for Poland to impose its patronage over Ukraine. Polish politicians are seeking more influence within the European Union, currently dominated by France and Germany, and to achieve this, they want to become patrons of the whole of Central and Eastern Europe, the Russian analyst said.
Markov said the United States would benefit from a Yushchenko victory as it would weaken Germany and France on the world arena and also split Ukraine and Russia. He also added that “the majority of the representatives of the Polish diaspora in the United States hate George Bush and want to cause a quarrel between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin”.
Markov also said that the main drawback of the plan was that its implementation was possible only on condition of extreme secrecy. He reminded the press that due to historical reasons the Ukrainians are very suspicious of the Poles and such a plan would find widespread disapproval among the majority of Ukrainians.
Izvestia November 25, 2005 THE REGIME IN UKRAINE IS MUCH STRONGER THAN IN GEORGIA OR SERBIA The situation in Ukraine is teetering on the brink Opinions Author: Sergei Markov, director of the Political Studies Institute [The first side to use force will lose. But if nothing happens, then sooner or later the demonstrators will disperse, and that would mean a victory for Viktor Yanukovich. So the regime is waiting it out; it will only use force in response to any direct aggression from the opposition.]
All along, the Ukrainian opposition has been preparing for a Georgia scenario: with funding provided by Freedom House, political consultants from Serbia created the Pora organization in Ukraine, modeled on Otpora in Belgrade and Kmara in Georgia. People's brigades have been created, made up of volunteers. But the Ukrainian authorities are also making their preparations against any attempt by the opposition to storm government buildings - and the regime in Ukraine is far stronger than the regimes in Georgia or Serbia were. Half of the Ukrainian people really did vote for Viktor Yanukovich; and he has the coal-miners behind him. Thus, the most likely outcome is that Yanukovich and President Leonid Kuchma will be able to keep the situation under control.
The opposition's plan is to get the parliament to vote no confidence in the Central Election Commission, the president, and the prime minister; then to transfer authority to the parliament - and Viktor Yushchenko has a long-standing agreement with Speaker Vladimir Litvin. But the radicals among the opposition are pushing for actions that go even further. They managed to convince Yushchenko to swear a symbolic oath of office as president of Ukraine, in the parliament building. Since that session of parliament did not reach quorum, the event turned into a farce - and even Litvin the speaker, a Yushchenko sympathiser, refused to participate.
A number of municipal and regional legislatures in western Ukraine have declared that Yushchenko is their president. That can already be classified as a revolt. If they go any further, the federal government will have to act - otherwise it will collapse. Opposition politician Yulia Timoshenko has already called on protesters to storm the parliament building. Sooner or later, the vast crowd in Independence Square will demand action - and then the clashes will begin.
The situation is teetering on the brink. The first side to use force will lose. But if nothing happens, then sooner or later - within a few weeks - the demonstrators will disperse, and that would mean a victory for Yanukovich. So the regime is waiting it out. To all appearances, the regime will only use force in response to any direct aggression from the opposition - especially given that international observers are divided in their opinions: some are strongly critical of the election, while others recognize it as flawed but valid.
The opposition is taking a resolute stand: it considers Yanukovich completely unacceptable as president. In voting for Yushchenko, opposition supporters were primarily voting against the current regime, and against crime; some were voting against Russia. But the other half of the electorate, while it may not think Yanukovich is an ideal president, considers Yushchenko completely unacceptable.
If the opposition occupies government buildings in Kiev, Yanukovich will go to Donetsk, where he would have the support of eastern and southern Ukraine. This poses the threat of splitting the country - the worst-case scenario. An outcome that's slightly better, but still bad, is the Abkhazia scenario: endless court battles. The best option would involve a compromise and political reforms: with Yanukovich as president, but most actual power passing to the parliament and a prime minister elected by the parliament.
Fraud did happen, but it didn't affect the outcome
But the main question remains: was the election honest or fraudulent? There was some vote-rigging, undoubtedly; but it did not affect the election outcome. The extent of fraud did not exceed average figures in the relatively democratic countries of the CIS. What's more, the use of state administration resources in the campaign was divided equally: in eastern and southern regions it worked in favor of Yanukovich, while in western Ukraine it worked in favor of Yushchenko.
Yanukovich won thanks to high voter turnout and television debates
The more densely populated regions of eastern and southern Ukraine voted for Yanukovich. Ukraine is split into two parts, and their voting patterns are quite different. Look at Donetsk, for example: 96% for Yanukovich, 2% for Yushchenko. Compare it to Lviv: 92% for Yushchenko, 7% for Yanukovich.
Western Ukraine and south-eastern Ukraine are like two different countries: Galicia-Ukraine and Russia-Ukraine. The western and central regions voted for Yushchenko, but fewer people live there. In the first round of voting, turnout was 10-15% higher in the west than in the east, which gave Yushchenko an advantage. But by the second round, the eastern and southern regions had grown alarmed by the prospect of Yushchenko winning and radical nationalists coming to power at his side. So voter turnout rose sharply in the south-east. This gave Yanukovich an extra 3% of the vote.
The television debates were the decisive event in between the two rounds of voting. The expectation was that Yushchenko, being a good speaker, would win the debates convincingly; but the reality was a tie "in favor of Yanukovich." No one expected him to perform so well in the debates. There is also the factor of economic growth, which has reached 13% this year (the highest rate in Europe). This enabled Yanukovich to double pension payments.
Yushchenko was over-confident and dominated by radicals
Yushchenko's major political error consists of being over- confident in his own victory and allowing the radicals among his supporters to grow so strong that they prevented him from making concessions to the pro-Russian regions of south-eastern Ukraine. Yanukovich proposed giving the Russian and Ukrainian languages almost equal status; Yushchenko, under pressure from his own radicals, has viewed Russian as the language of an ethnic minority, no more important than Hungarian (although polls show that 45% of Ukraine's citizens speak Russian at home, 45% speak Ukrainian, and 10% speak both languages).
Yanukovich supports the idea of a common economic territory with Russia, and the option of Russian-Ukrainian dual citizenship. Yushchenko is opposed to both ideas. This presidential election in Ukraine has followed the same pattern as the previous election: the president owes his election to the pro-Russian, Russian- speaking regions of southern and eastern Ukraine. Of course, Yanukovich's criminal record counted heavily against him; that's why he only got 50% of the vote rather than 65%.
OSCE observers only looked for fraud in favor of Yanukovich; CIS observers only looked for fraud in favor of Yushchenko
The West's efforts to have the election declared invalid will be viewed by Moscow as a shameless attempt to steal victory from the pro-Russian candidate and impose an anti-Russian president on the Ukrainian people. International observers have been totally discredited in Ukraine, because observers from the OSCE and NATO countries were only looking for examples of fraud in favor of Yanukovich, while CIS observers only looked for fraud in favor of Yushchenko; thus, the observers essentially became part of the campaign teams. Exit polls have also lost their credibility, because they were paid for by organizations linked to one candidate or the other, and all of them showed distortions in favor of their candidates.
Why are the protest rallies in Kiev so large? Because 75% of Kiev's voters supported Yushchenko, so the overall nationwide results seem absurd to them. Moreover, Kiev has become westernized in recent years, thus cutting itself off from the rest of the country. Another point worth noting: the intelligentsia and the students feel insulted by the idea that their country might have a president with two criminal convictions in his past. Hence their viciousness.
The opposition depicts the election as a contest between the regime's candidate and the people's candidate. But Yushchenko's team itself is entirely made up of the elite: Yushchenko and Kinakh are former prime ministers, Timoshenko and Poroshenko are oligarchs (and Timoshenko is also a former deputy prime minister responsible for the fuel and energy sector), Moroz is a former speaker of the parliament, and others are former ministers. So this is actually an intra-elite conflict, making use of the people.
Translated by Pavel Pushkin
===== Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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