Ukraine’s missed opportunity

As expected, Ukraine’s recent election was reportedly riddled with massive fraud, albeit on an arguably lesser scale than the corruption which triggered the 2004 Orange Revolution. Meanwhile, the charismatic Yulia Tymoshenko, one of the leaders of the Orange Revolution remains locked up.

Tymoshenko’s incarceration is indicative of the price she and her Orange partners are paying for squandering the enormous chances offered to salvage Ukraine from the claws of despotic governance.

Defying the freezing winter frost of 2004, thousands of Ukrainians congregated in Kiev’s central square Maidan Nezalezhnost, seen as the final bastion for safeguarding what was left of the sorry state of democracy in this ex-Soviet state. So profound was the urgency that it galvanized the bonding sentiment of national pride; a lingering testament to the longing for salvation from the demons of plutocracy that had become the Achilles heels of the country.

As the protests rolled on for days, then President Kuchma and his protege Yanukovich with their entire corrupt clique saw their fate written on the wall. A determined opposition united under the Orange banner was clearly on course to altering the nation’s history.

History vindicated the pro-democracy Orange platform by entrusting the task of reconstructing the destiny of Ukraine into the hands of the charm offensive Tymoshenko and Victor Yuschenko the avowed pragmatist reformer. Returning protesters took home to their kith and kin the joy of prevailing against the anti-democratic forces with a much greater hope of creating a better Ukraine under a new breed of leadership.

As fate would have it, the Orange partnership was soon engulfed by an internal feud, leading to the dismissal of Premier Tymoshenko by then President Yuschenko. This move brought about a domino effect of fragmentation and bad blood between the Orange partners. Half-way through his five-year mandate, illustrating the lame duck that he had become, President Yuschenko contending with the reality of the failure of the Orange Partnership was resigned to fighting for his own political future rather than consolidating the gains of the revolution. So vicious was the antagonism between the former allies that they soon made their support base horribly disillusioned.

After narrowly losing the 2010 election, Tymoshenko reportedly said it was “Ukraine’s missed opportunity” to consolidate democracy. I disagree. The Orange Revolution was Ukraine’s actual missed opportunity to climb a rung on the democratic ladder. Voter apathy especially in the traditional stronghold of the Orange movement became the single factor in Yanukovich’s return. The recent election once again is indicative of a promising dream turning into a nightmare.

Brussels’ current policy approach of resorting to play the card of European integration with Kiev is bound to fail even before it gets started. Unlike the erstwhile Orange coalition, Yanukovich’s Party of Regions does not live and die for a European partnership, thereby leaving no room for maneuver on this card. It is no secret that Moscow currently exerts a stronger influence on Kiev than it did during the Yuschenko administration. As long as Yanukovich is left with a fallback strategy in the wake of strong patronage from Moscow then definitely concessions cannot be extracted from him, if so to speak.

Yanukovich’s government is determined to cling to power at all cost, traveling great lengths to make sacrificial lambs of all who stand in their way. Yanukovich’s brief political sabbatical after the 2004 Orange Revolution afforded him enough time to recuperate from the near fatal sting of the Revolution. With Yuschenko now technically a toothless bulldog and a fragmented opposition the democratic fate of the nation appears sealed.

What’s more, the Yanukovich causes are better served while Tymoshenko remains behind bars. Typical of its tacit approval, Moscow has gone under the veil of sovereignty to absolve itself from domestic political developments in its neighboring country. The sooner the West came to terms with the source of the real power behind the reign of Yanukovich, the better their chances of achieving the goal of a change in heart.

Of greater concern is how the release of Tymoshenko and other political prisoners such as Yuriy Lutsenko will impact the political landscape of Ukraine. It is an irony of history that Western leaders expect Yanukovich to tear down his own handiwork when the Orange Coalition whose historic mandate it was to do so woefully failed. With a very disillusioned electoral base, Tymoshenko is highly unlikely to command the same level of popular support that was manifested in the heydays of the Orange Revolution.

To judge the Orange Coalition on its merits, Tymoshenko will not be able to stand the scrutiny of concrete providence. Tymoshenko and Yushchenko made a fetish of the Ukrainian people’s calls for reform. They have nothing to show for breaking the corrupt culture of impunity, just as they are unable to boast of any palpable democratic reform. Had they kept faith with the masses that propelled them to power or even placed the supreme interest of the people above their personal differences then they would have effectively condemned the gangster political culture of the Party of Regions to the marginal fringes of obscurity.

The writer is a copy editor with The Korea Times. He can be reached on alenga.d@gmail.com. <The Korea Times/Alenga David>