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maryxmasUkraine Elections: How Kuchma lost Ukraine
By: Stephen Bandera
Editor, English Supplement to "National'na Trybuna", (New York)
and
Professor Vitaliy Shelest, NASU Corresponding Member, IMCA President
With the end of Ukraine's dramatic six month presidential marathon in sight (all that stands between Viktor Yushchenko and the presidential chair is the formality of an inauguration), it is worthwhile to focus on key events of the campaign in an effort to understand the internal factors and logic that led to what became known as the "Orange Revolution."
The election campaign essentially began back in December 2003, when the Constitutional Court ruled that President Leonid Kuchma was in fact eligible to run for a third term in office. Despite the fragile legal argumentation and questionable morality of the court's decision, Kuchma received formal approval for another run at the office he has held for more than ten years.
According to insiders, the Presidential Administration commissioned a confidential poll in January 2004 to get a sense of their patron's chances. The results showed that Kuchma could expect between 12-15% support, even with the complete mobilization of the administrative resource and massive fraud. It became apparent that it would be simply impossible to overcome public dissatisfaction and even hatred towards the ruling regime. There was little chance of stopping the main opposition candidate Yushchenko and his ever-increasing popularity rating. The need for alternatives arose. Two possible scenarios were considered.
The first scenario was the prompt introduction of constitutional reforms. Accordingly, Kuchma would be able to retain his colossal powers as a Prime Minister and remain the de facto number one political player of the land. The amendments foresaw that the Cabinet of Ministers would be a coalition government formed on the basis of a parliamentary majority. The future President would be powerless before the coalition and the Prime Minister would assume the powers of appointing the entire hierarchy of the state administration. Chances for securing the required 300 votes in parliament were fairly decent in April 2004; some 10-15 additional MPs were required to supplement the existing pro-Kuchma parliamentary majority. But Kuchma did not give the command to go ahead with the plan. He loathed the very idea of becoming Prime Minister under some other, even nominal, President. Instead, preference was given to another, more forceful and manipulative, approach: to put forward a consolidated candidate from the pro-government forces to battle and neutralize Yushchenko. The opposition politician was leading all public opinion polls and effectively running an election campaign for the past six months. The pro-governmental candidate was to play a mere technical role: his battle with Yushchenko was to bring about both candidates' self-demise and destruction. The plan was for both candidates to initiate legal proceedings about widespread electoral violations after the first round of elections. After the second round, both candidates would declare victory and charge each other with total falsification, thus taking the battle to the courts. The Supreme Court would then rule that it is impossible to determine the real results of the elections and forbid both candidates from running again due to widespread transgressions committed by both sides. Thus, Kuchma would remain in power, Constitutional reforms would be passed and new elections would be held in April 2005.
According to Dmytro Vydrin, director of the European Institute of Development and Integration and veteran insider of the Kuchma administration, "Kuchma is the primary political technologist in Ukraine. The problem is not that his plan was to put forward weak presidential candidates. He simply could not fathom handing power over to anybody. He did not care one bit about whom he would name as his successor. He wanted to stay in power. Kuchma considered several approaches to prolonging his term in office, but then they encountered a reality that crushed all illusions and caused the situation to develop beyond all control." ("Izvestia-Ukraine," November 30 2004)
Initially, everything was going according to Kuchma's plan. In April 2004, Kuchma and the pro-governmental forces nominated Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych as the "consolidated candidate." >From the very outset, the Yanukovych nomination gave rise to a number of fundamental questions. Why did the regime, meaning the Kuchma-Medvedchuk team (Viktor Medvedchuk is the head of the Presidential Administration), choose a candidate with a criminal past? Did they not understand that this "baggage" would deny Yanukovych access to a level playing field in the upcoming battle? Of course, they understood, but a candidate with a stained reputation fit perfectly into the scenario they had chosen. Moreover, Yanukovych's past made him more dependent on the administrative resource and guaranteed his loyalty to the primary and experienced managers of the levers of power - Kuchma and Medvedchuk.
Throughout May and June, numerous civil forums, assemblies and meetings of pro-Kuchma pocket political parties were conducted, their participants pledged fealty to Yanukovych. Toasts were raised, feasts were consumed, and the participants returned home. At the same time, the Presidential Administration did nothing to expand the network of the administrative resource for Yanukovych's benefit. Lavishly worded pronouncements by Medvedchuk's United Social Democratic Party were merely declarative and the regional structures did little to support Yanukovych's bid for the presidency.
By July, Yanukovych, who still failed to understand that he was being used as a "dummy in a bridge party," began to worry and started employing his own resources. The Cabinet began issuing statements that wages, stipends, pensions and social spending will increase in the near future. In September-November, those promises were delivered. By overextending budgetary resources and forcing Ukrainian business to pay more into the state coffers, the government increased payments to the population. Naturally, this had a positive effect of Yanukovych's popularity ratings, but was still not enough to defeat Yushchenko. Yanukovych's campaign then played what has come to be called the "Russia card" in Ukrainian politics. According to many analysts, this is exactly the card that allowed Kuchma to defeat his predecessor, Leonid Kravchuk, in 1994. For Yanukovych, the "Russia card" was more than campaign contributions from the northern neighbor and promises of making Russian a second state language. Yanukovych's promises also included musings about dual citizenship. In turn, Russia responded by promising to ease registration requirements for Ukrainian citizens residing in Russia.
Yanukovych's Russia card also included the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who visited Kyiv three days before the elections and praised the economic record the Yanukovych government in a live televised interview. Putin met with Yanukovych again on November 12 in Crimea, where he wished the candidate success in the runoff. After a decent showing in the first round of the elections, the public opinion polls commissioned by Yanukovych's headquarters showed that he would lose by a hair to Yushchenko in round two. Forced into a dead end, the Prime Minister's supporters had no other choice but to conduct a massive campaign of falsifying the election results in the eastern and southern regions of the country which they controlled and fudging numbers on the server of the Central Election Commission. Then the CEC would quietly tally the results and announce Yanukovych the winner. During all this time, the Kuchma-Medvedchuk team maintained an air of calm worthy of Olympian gods and did not become involved in the race because everything was going according to their plan.
The first fissures began to appear soon after polls closed on November 21. Exit-poll results showed a convincing Yushchenko victory. The official results initially reported by the CEC were very different. Although the exit poll and parallel vote count results did not have any formal legal bearing, they did provide the Yushchenko team with a moral springboard for what was to happen next. They provided the proof that widespread fraud had occurred and that Yanukovych was trying to steal the election.
The "Orange Revolution" was already in progress by the morning of November 22. The large stage, with modern sound, electronic and projection equipment that was erected on Kyiv's Independence Square a week before, became the focus of an ongoing concert of politicians and pop-stars that lasted for weeks. Performers began including Yushchenko's campaign slogan "Yushchenko - yes!" in their songs. There was very little politics on the Maidan: Yushchenko did not make any concrete promises, there was very little discussion, but a lot of hoopla. The initial phase of the Orange Revolution was modeled on a sports fan rally, where the simple principle "us against them" was employed, with one major difference. The coordinators of the crowd constantly repeated that no aggression should be demonstrated against opponents, law enforcement or local residents who might complain about the noise and inconveniences encountered. Instead, Yushchenko supporters were encouraged to hand out orange ribbons and flowers to police and passers-by.
The tactic of maintaining good relations with locals and law enforcement was supplemented by the strong grip of an iron hand. Within two days, the "Oranges" had total control on the center of the capital and set up blockades of major administrative buildings that completely paralyzed work in the Cabinet of Ministers and Presidential Administration. Although these actions were illegal and punishable by several articles of the Criminal Code, not a single protester was arrested.
In the first two days, the number of protesters on Maidan grew to 200 - 300 thousand. They were mostly youth: university and high school students. They enjoyed the concerts, came to simply "hang out" and - most importantly - felt that they were participating in something grandiose and historically significant. The majority of them probably never held Yushchenko's electoral program and campaign materials in their hands. They simply believed that Yushchenko represents something good while Yanukovych serves Kuchma's corrupt regime. Thus, the formation of public perceptions on Maidan was accomplished by redirecting disdain for Kuchma towards Yanukovych's person.
The logistical support enjoyed by the Oranges was impressive. More than 300 hundred new and well-supplied tents were pitched on the capital's main street and around governmental buildings. The protesters were fed for free and supplied with warm clothing. After a few days, military "field kitchens" appeared. Similar actions were conducted throughout the country, although on a much smaller scale.
As the sun set early in the evening on November 29, the Oranges controlled the majority of oblasts in western and central Ukraine. All Kuchma had at his disposal were a few comfortable "safe houses" and several groups of personal bodyguards. The wily Kuchma-Medvedchuk scenario had turned into a complete fiasco. Truth be told, this duo could have called in the army to introduce a state of emergency in the capital. On the night of November 29, several army units were ordered to relocate in Kyiv. Thankfully, common sense prevailed and the order to go ahead against the demonstrators was either not issued or rescinded at the very last moment.
The perspectives for the Russia-Donetsk project called "Yanukovych" seem to be minimal. This project emerged as a by-product of the Kuchma-Medvedchuk scenario. But it is not worth taking the prospects of separatism or creation of a south-eastern confederacy with a view towards joining Russia too seriously. These were nothing more than canards of propaganda that have taken flight in the past. The final word in this case belongs to eastern Ukrainian business whose interests lie more in Eastern Europe and the EU than in the Russian Federation.
Thus, the Orange Revolution can be called a resounding victory. Of course, it enjoyed moral and, according to some, massive financial support from various foreign NGO, funds, associations and Western states. Other reports contend that the millions of dollars of Western democracy programs aside, the primary sponsors of the Orange Revolution were the people of Ukraine. Although the exact numbers have yet to be tallied, one conclusion that can already be made is that the resources of Ukrainian "people power" and Western "democracy building" defeated the "Russia card," Russian election contributions and the incredible resources of Ukraine's oligarchs. In purely economic terms, Yushchenko's backers used their resources more efficiently. In doing so they helped to manifest the superiority of Western political technologies, which appeal to basic emotions and political instincts at grass root levels, over Soviet-Byzantine technologies that treat the electorate as mere stage decorations. (* NASU - National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; IMCA - International "Middle Class" Association.)
This article is part of the UACLA's Ukraine Civil Liberty Watch series. Please feel free to republish in whole or in part with attribution to the authors. Reprints are requested to be addressed to press@uacla.org or directly mailed to the UACLA. http://uacla.org
By: Stephen Bandera
Editor, English Supplement to "National'na Trybuna", (New York)
and
Professor Vitaliy Shelest, NASU Corresponding Member, IMCA President
With the end of Ukraine's dramatic six month presidential marathon in sight (all that stands between Viktor Yushchenko and the presidential chair is the formality of an inauguration), it is worthwhile to focus on key events of the campaign in an effort to understand the internal factors and logic that led to what became known as the "Orange Revolution."
The election campaign essentially began back in December 2003, when the Constitutional Court ruled that President Leonid Kuchma was in fact eligible to run for a third term in office. Despite the fragile legal argumentation and questionable morality of the court's decision, Kuchma received formal approval for another run at the office he has held for more than ten years.
According to insiders, the Presidential Administration commissioned a confidential poll in January 2004 to get a sense of their patron's chances. The results showed that Kuchma could expect between 12-15% support, even with the complete mobilization of the administrative resource and massive fraud. It became apparent that it would be simply impossible to overcome public dissatisfaction and even hatred towards the ruling regime. There was little chance of stopping the main opposition candidate Yushchenko and his ever-increasing popularity rating. The need for alternatives arose. Two possible scenarios were considered.
The first scenario was the prompt introduction of constitutional reforms. Accordingly, Kuchma would be able to retain his colossal powers as a Prime Minister and remain the de facto number one political player of the land. The amendments foresaw that the Cabinet of Ministers would be a coalition government formed on the basis of a parliamentary majority. The future President would be powerless before the coalition and the Prime Minister would assume the powers of appointing the entire hierarchy of the state administration. Chances for securing the required 300 votes in parliament were fairly decent in April 2004; some 10-15 additional MPs were required to supplement the existing pro-Kuchma parliamentary majority. But Kuchma did not give the command to go ahead with the plan. He loathed the very idea of becoming Prime Minister under some other, even nominal, President. Instead, preference was given to another, more forceful and manipulative, approach: to put forward a consolidated candidate from the pro-government forces to battle and neutralize Yushchenko. The opposition politician was leading all public opinion polls and effectively running an election campaign for the past six months. The pro-governmental candidate was to play a mere technical role: his battle with Yushchenko was to bring about both candidates' self-demise and destruction. The plan was for both candidates to initiate legal proceedings about widespread electoral violations after the first round of elections. After the second round, both candidates would declare victory and charge each other with total falsification, thus taking the battle to the courts. The Supreme Court would then rule that it is impossible to determine the real results of the elections and forbid both candidates from running again due to widespread transgressions committed by both sides. Thus, Kuchma would remain in power, Constitutional reforms would be passed and new elections would be held in April 2005.
According to Dmytro Vydrin, director of the European Institute of Development and Integration and veteran insider of the Kuchma administration, "Kuchma is the primary political technologist in Ukraine. The problem is not that his plan was to put forward weak presidential candidates. He simply could not fathom handing power over to anybody. He did not care one bit about whom he would name as his successor. He wanted to stay in power. Kuchma considered several approaches to prolonging his term in office, but then they encountered a reality that crushed all illusions and caused the situation to develop beyond all control." ("Izvestia-Ukraine," November 30 2004)
Initially, everything was going according to Kuchma's plan. In April 2004, Kuchma and the pro-governmental forces nominated Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych as the "consolidated candidate." >From the very outset, the Yanukovych nomination gave rise to a number of fundamental questions. Why did the regime, meaning the Kuchma-Medvedchuk team (Viktor Medvedchuk is the head of the Presidential Administration), choose a candidate with a criminal past? Did they not understand that this "baggage" would deny Yanukovych access to a level playing field in the upcoming battle? Of course, they understood, but a candidate with a stained reputation fit perfectly into the scenario they had chosen. Moreover, Yanukovych's past made him more dependent on the administrative resource and guaranteed his loyalty to the primary and experienced managers of the levers of power - Kuchma and Medvedchuk.
Throughout May and June, numerous civil forums, assemblies and meetings of pro-Kuchma pocket political parties were conducted, their participants pledged fealty to Yanukovych. Toasts were raised, feasts were consumed, and the participants returned home. At the same time, the Presidential Administration did nothing to expand the network of the administrative resource for Yanukovych's benefit. Lavishly worded pronouncements by Medvedchuk's United Social Democratic Party were merely declarative and the regional structures did little to support Yanukovych's bid for the presidency.
By July, Yanukovych, who still failed to understand that he was being used as a "dummy in a bridge party," began to worry and started employing his own resources. The Cabinet began issuing statements that wages, stipends, pensions and social spending will increase in the near future. In September-November, those promises were delivered. By overextending budgetary resources and forcing Ukrainian business to pay more into the state coffers, the government increased payments to the population. Naturally, this had a positive effect of Yanukovych's popularity ratings, but was still not enough to defeat Yushchenko. Yanukovych's campaign then played what has come to be called the "Russia card" in Ukrainian politics. According to many analysts, this is exactly the card that allowed Kuchma to defeat his predecessor, Leonid Kravchuk, in 1994. For Yanukovych, the "Russia card" was more than campaign contributions from the northern neighbor and promises of making Russian a second state language. Yanukovych's promises also included musings about dual citizenship. In turn, Russia responded by promising to ease registration requirements for Ukrainian citizens residing in Russia.
Yanukovych's Russia card also included the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who visited Kyiv three days before the elections and praised the economic record the Yanukovych government in a live televised interview. Putin met with Yanukovych again on November 12 in Crimea, where he wished the candidate success in the runoff. After a decent showing in the first round of the elections, the public opinion polls commissioned by Yanukovych's headquarters showed that he would lose by a hair to Yushchenko in round two. Forced into a dead end, the Prime Minister's supporters had no other choice but to conduct a massive campaign of falsifying the election results in the eastern and southern regions of the country which they controlled and fudging numbers on the server of the Central Election Commission. Then the CEC would quietly tally the results and announce Yanukovych the winner. During all this time, the Kuchma-Medvedchuk team maintained an air of calm worthy of Olympian gods and did not become involved in the race because everything was going according to their plan.
The first fissures began to appear soon after polls closed on November 21. Exit-poll results showed a convincing Yushchenko victory. The official results initially reported by the CEC were very different. Although the exit poll and parallel vote count results did not have any formal legal bearing, they did provide the Yushchenko team with a moral springboard for what was to happen next. They provided the proof that widespread fraud had occurred and that Yanukovych was trying to steal the election.
The "Orange Revolution" was already in progress by the morning of November 22. The large stage, with modern sound, electronic and projection equipment that was erected on Kyiv's Independence Square a week before, became the focus of an ongoing concert of politicians and pop-stars that lasted for weeks. Performers began including Yushchenko's campaign slogan "Yushchenko - yes!" in their songs. There was very little politics on the Maidan: Yushchenko did not make any concrete promises, there was very little discussion, but a lot of hoopla. The initial phase of the Orange Revolution was modeled on a sports fan rally, where the simple principle "us against them" was employed, with one major difference. The coordinators of the crowd constantly repeated that no aggression should be demonstrated against opponents, law enforcement or local residents who might complain about the noise and inconveniences encountered. Instead, Yushchenko supporters were encouraged to hand out orange ribbons and flowers to police and passers-by.
The tactic of maintaining good relations with locals and law enforcement was supplemented by the strong grip of an iron hand. Within two days, the "Oranges" had total control on the center of the capital and set up blockades of major administrative buildings that completely paralyzed work in the Cabinet of Ministers and Presidential Administration. Although these actions were illegal and punishable by several articles of the Criminal Code, not a single protester was arrested.
In the first two days, the number of protesters on Maidan grew to 200 - 300 thousand. They were mostly youth: university and high school students. They enjoyed the concerts, came to simply "hang out" and - most importantly - felt that they were participating in something grandiose and historically significant. The majority of them probably never held Yushchenko's electoral program and campaign materials in their hands. They simply believed that Yushchenko represents something good while Yanukovych serves Kuchma's corrupt regime. Thus, the formation of public perceptions on Maidan was accomplished by redirecting disdain for Kuchma towards Yanukovych's person.
The logistical support enjoyed by the Oranges was impressive. More than 300 hundred new and well-supplied tents were pitched on the capital's main street and around governmental buildings. The protesters were fed for free and supplied with warm clothing. After a few days, military "field kitchens" appeared. Similar actions were conducted throughout the country, although on a much smaller scale.
As the sun set early in the evening on November 29, the Oranges controlled the majority of oblasts in western and central Ukraine. All Kuchma had at his disposal were a few comfortable "safe houses" and several groups of personal bodyguards. The wily Kuchma-Medvedchuk scenario had turned into a complete fiasco. Truth be told, this duo could have called in the army to introduce a state of emergency in the capital. On the night of November 29, several army units were ordered to relocate in Kyiv. Thankfully, common sense prevailed and the order to go ahead against the demonstrators was either not issued or rescinded at the very last moment.
The perspectives for the Russia-Donetsk project called "Yanukovych" seem to be minimal. This project emerged as a by-product of the Kuchma-Medvedchuk scenario. But it is not worth taking the prospects of separatism or creation of a south-eastern confederacy with a view towards joining Russia too seriously. These were nothing more than canards of propaganda that have taken flight in the past. The final word in this case belongs to eastern Ukrainian business whose interests lie more in Eastern Europe and the EU than in the Russian Federation.
Thus, the Orange Revolution can be called a resounding victory. Of course, it enjoyed moral and, according to some, massive financial support from various foreign NGO, funds, associations and Western states. Other reports contend that the millions of dollars of Western democracy programs aside, the primary sponsors of the Orange Revolution were the people of Ukraine. Although the exact numbers have yet to be tallied, one conclusion that can already be made is that the resources of Ukrainian "people power" and Western "democracy building" defeated the "Russia card," Russian election contributions and the incredible resources of Ukraine's oligarchs. In purely economic terms, Yushchenko's backers used their resources more efficiently. In doing so they helped to manifest the superiority of Western political technologies, which appeal to basic emotions and political instincts at grass root levels, over Soviet-Byzantine technologies that treat the electorate as mere stage decorations. (* NASU - National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; IMCA - International "Middle Class" Association.)
This article is part of the UACLA's Ukraine Civil Liberty Watch series. Please feel free to republish in whole or in part with attribution to the authors. Reprints are requested to be addressed to press@uacla.org or directly mailed to the UACLA. http://uacla.org
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Stephen Bandera
Date: 2005-01-31 01:43 am (UTC)P.S. В лютому вже побачимося - дуже перегружений роботою.
Re: Stephen Bandera
Date: 2005-01-31 01:47 am (UTC)добре.
а що ті хлопці -- ти їм будеш дзвонити?
no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 02:57 am (UTC)ничего нового.
причины, по которым план не сработал, тоже на поверхности. очень похоже на правду. с той разницей, что до правды все равно не добраться.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 12:42 pm (UTC)