CSIS Robin Shepherd In this Wall Street Journal (Europe Edition) Op-ped

CSIS adjunct fellow Robin Shepherd’s article on the Ukrainian crisis appeared in the Friday, September 9, 2005 issue of Wall Street Journal (Europe edition). Shepherd evaluates the future President Yushchenko will bring with his new government.
Eurasia: Peeling Away the Revolution
The Wall Street Journal Europe A7 1,012 words September 9, 2005 By Robin Shepherd English (Copyright (c) 2005, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) An act of strength or sign of weakness? Actually, Viktor Yushchenko's decision to fire his entire government yesterday smacks of both: strength because it allows him to form a cabinet of allies rather than rivals; and weakness because he was all but forced to do it to answer damaging accusations that he was tolerating corruption in his own inner circle. We may leave that debate about the position of President Yushchenko to those who believe history is the product of great men. To the rest of us, Ukraine's biggest political crisis since the Orange Revolution should be understood, to a great extent, in terms of flaws in the revolution which were apparent from the start. Yesterday's events may not have been inevitable, but a panoply of factors made some sort of crisis a distinct possibility. The most obvious problems, of course, centered on the fractious nature of the democratic forces that took power in January. In explaining his decision yesterday, Mr. Yushchenko accused the government of losing its "team spirit," an accusation which when applied to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko could pass for the country's understatement of the year. The charismatic, and immensely rich, premier has barely concealed her own ambitions to take the president's place as the key player in national politics and has been engaged in all-out warfare with other members of the government for months. Enter Petro Poroshenko, the National Security and Defense Council secretary, who has been at loggerheads with Ms. Tymoshenko over economic policy. Corruption allegations (unsubstantiated as yet) against Mr. Poroshenko, who is also immensely rich, brought the current crisis to a head, and there is now a real risk that the two will lead their respective power blocks into next March's crucial general elections as enemies rather than allies. Any such confrontation could prove disastrous for the reform movement, either pushing it out of power completely or, more likely, forcing reformists to make damaging concessions to supporters of the previous administration in order to form a new government. To add to the difficulties, such bickering takes place amid a dramatic downturn in the country's economic fortunes. Growth in the first half of the year collapsed to just 3.7%. That compares to 13.5% in the same period last year. Sliding growth has been accompanied by rocketing inflation, which currently hovers just below 15%. In a country where many people earn less than $50 a month, rising prices can cause real social pain. Not surprisingly against such a backdrop, public support is plummeting. A poll by the Razumkov institute in August suggested that 43% of Ukrainians believed the country was on the wrong path, a jump from 23% in April. The August poll found just 32% felt the country was doing well, down sharply from 54% last spring.

The key question now, therefore, is this: Can Mr. Yushchenko and his new government recreate unity among the country's democratic forces, or are they heading for collapse? Much depends on the attitude of Ms. Tymoshenko. She is due to make a televised address later today and it is little exaggeration to say that the content of that broadcast could define the future of her country. If she accepts President Yushchenko's generous offer yesterday to keep her in the fold in some capacity or other, there is hope that the reformists can pull it off. But she could also cause real problems. Mr. Yushchenko already faces difficulties in parliament passing legislation aimed at joining the World Trade Organization. He also has to get approval for the new prime minister. If Ms. Tymoshenko opts for all-out confrontation, it is hard to see how the situation can be prevented from descending into chaos. But ultimate success for the aims of the Orange Revolution has never been simply down to events inside Ukraine. The country's problems were always going to be too severe to cope with in the absence of outside help. That's why the attitude of the European Union has always been so important, and why its policy hitherto has been so disappointing. What Ukraine needs, and needs fast, is a clear and unambiguous statement from Brussels that it will be invited to start accession negotiations with the European Union if the country's prodemocracy parties promise to work together to pass important reformist legislation and then go on to win the March elections. Such a statement would certainly be tantamount to blatant intervention in Ukraine's political affairs, but it would be no less welcome for that. There is also a useful precedent in Brussels's brilliant strategy of working with democratic forces in neighboring Slovakia in the 1990s to successfully promote unity among opponents of that country's former authoritarian Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar. Slovakia today is a reformist success story. Brussels must take note. All this said, the big picture in Ukraine remains one of hope and progress. This time last year, the country was run by a group of people who it would be kind to describe as thugs. The country still may have a long way to go, but we are at least past the stage at which opposition journalists wandered around the streets of Kiev in fear for their lives. When President George W. Bush praised the millions of people who stood on the streets of the Ukrainian capital last year as modern-day heroes of the democratic ideal, he was right. But as in Iraq, what he and his administration may have underestimated is the sheer complexity of the task at hand and the time scale in which we expect success. What we are watching in Ukraine are still the first tentative steps in a desperately difficult transition. We will get a pretty good idea of whether that task can, in the end, be accomplished in the days and weeks ahead. Mr. Shepherd is an adjunct fellow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is based in Bratislava.