A twelve-year-old Rubicon

The whirlwind of a bitter face-off between the government and the opposition over the arrest of and the bringing of more and more charges against Yulia Tymoshenko has somewhat drowned out the date of November 14. On this day in 1999 Ukraine was electing the president in a runoff. Many may be looking on this as long-bygone days and water under the bridge, but the ever-deteriorating domestic political situation makes us ponder again over the systemic problems which this country is still unable to get rid of. Actually, our external difficulties, from the confrontation with Russia to differences with our Western neighbors, are a continuation of our domestic uneasiness. The Ukrainian political, economic, and financial elites are in a permanent state of double-mindedness and lack of political willpower to make urgent, difficult, and unpopular decisions.

Everything begins in the past and passes into the future. More often than not, the problems that remained unsolved in the past years are tightening their deadly grip on the ring from which it is more and more difficult to break loose due to societal tension. The latter can be increasingly often seen by the walls of the Verkhovna Rada and regional administrations. It is so far possible to shift the blame to someone else, satisfy those who need this most of all, and thus ease the situation for some time. A new dose of financial aspirin can bring down the fever but not cure the disease – it will only dull it and complicate further recovery.

All this has been recurring more than once, but this country and society have always been able to find the historical arrows that allow to choose the right direction of movement. The high quality of a political elite that nominates far-seeing leaders from its ranks lies in its being able to find these, sometimes hidden, arrows and put the state train on the road of progress and prosperity. These arrows in the historical development and making of the Ukrainian state emerged in the 1999 elections.

What did Ukraine finish with at the end of Leonid Kuchma’s first presidential term? Many are now nostalgic about those times, when a semblance of stability reigned for some time and the economy began to grow. But distances often cause an optical illusion. Difficulties and problems are either not recalled or are presented as not so essential in comparison with what we are going through now. However, all this is superficial and does not touch the deep-running societal processes whose consequences we can see evolving today at an ever-growing pace.

What did Kuchma achieve in the first term of his presidency? After the anarchy of the first years of independence, a lot of efforts helped restore the manual management of the economy and finances, with due account of the changed conditions. Oligarchization was not only not eradicated but was considerably increased much to the delight of the party and state nomenklatura which felt very comfortable under those conditions and laid the social background for the regime. The obvious manifestation of this process was the notorious chain of command which neither the Party of Regions nor the president’s inner circle is shunning today. Kuchma was always short of powers. This could have resulted in the establishment of a Belarusian- or current Russian-type authoritarian regime. That this did not happen was not due to lack of wishes and actions in this direction but owing to other factors which the authors of this strategy did not take into account. What is more, even when powers were granted, they were most often used ineffectively, to the detriment of the economy, finances, and the country as a whole. Kuchma was just very lucky at a certain moment. The world economic situation allowed the economy to grow without any major efforts being made. But still our neighbors achieved much more, leaving us at the bottom of the list.

When Kuchma’s first presidential term was drawing to a close, it became clear to the most far-seeing politicians that the then course led the country into a deadlock. It was necessary to write and implement a totally different scenario of this country’s development. The most optimal legal form for this kind of jump was the 1999 presidential elections. It is not just the statement of a fact but the reality of that day. There was a candidate that possessed the required potential and political willpower to do so.

Ukrainian society was made to swallow a scenario brought from Moscow by the hired second-rate spin masters – the face-off between the liberal Kuchma and the communist Petro Symonenko. As it was in Russia shortly before: Boris Yeltsin vs. Gennady Ziuganov. In reality, Kuchma’s team was not afraid of Symonenko because the leader of Ukrainian communists was not at all geared up for victory and was diligently playing the assigned role. What represented a far greater danger was the “Kaniv Four” with Yevhen Marchuk at the head. A very important precedent was set in Kaniv in August 1999, which created a real alternative to the Kuchma regime. The four political forces – different by nature and ideology – ma-naged to make a deal. The difficult and rather long talks ended with a success. Incidentally, this happened on a day when the government held a grandiose military parade in Kyiv – not only with tanks but also with aircraft, even though our pilots had an acute shortage of fuel even for routine flights. As the government was making a show of its force, the Four gathered in Kaniv and the then Verkhovna Rada Speaker Oleksandr Tkachenko demonstratively refused to be present at the parade.

Kuchma immediately saw the source of a visible and tangible danger and channeled the main efforts in this direction. Unfortunately, he succeeded because the politicians who had rallied into the Four were pursuing totally different goals. For the Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz it was a purely tactical move to prepare the best conditions in bargaining with the government. The author happened to speak with Moroz on those summer days of 1999. Asked about what office he will assume if the Four’s candidate wins the elections, the Socialist leader said straight away: “The president.” “But you have nominated a different candidate,” we objected, but the answer was the same: “The president.” So the record was put straight. The chance to radically change something in this country was missed due to the desire to satisfy personal ambitions. This is what the vast majority of our political elite was and still is. It managed to impose a wrong choice on the people because society was not prepared for radical changes and, besides, believed in Kuchma’s promise that they would see an “updated” president after the election.

To implement this put-on dilemma, Kuchma’s team allegedly used the services of the opposition movements that had split by that time – even the future President Viktor Yushchenko also worked for Kuchma’s victory in his headquarters. The so-called Ukrainian opposition was in fact working to reinforce the authoritarian regime on the principle of a lesser evil. This is the way they were propping up the regime, scaring the people with mythical restoration of communism. They knew only too well that this would not happen in principle and, even if it did, like in Bulgaria, it would be no more than a red camouflage. The decline and fall of the Ukrainian opposition had begun earlier, when it helped adopt a Constitution tailored for none other than Kuchma. Then the Constitution was altered over and over again to please the new government. And every time there were oppositionists who often turned into political deserters. The opposition without a linchpin is an imitation, not an opposition. In 1999 the Ukrainian opposition suffered its Waterloo from which it still cannot recover. But the more essential thing is that they do not understand what happened, and hence are all its woes.

What did Ukraine see after Kuchma had begun his second term in office? It was a “dirty” election in the atmosphere of governmental all-permissiveness and wide-scale utilization of the administrative resource. About a year later the “Kuchmagate” scandal broke out and Heorhii Gongadze was murdered. The circumstances of the murder, as well as those who ordered it, have long been known. But they have not been punished. And what about the mysterious deaths of Yurii Kravchenko and Heorhii Kyrpa? Unfortunately, the Gongadze tragedy (for his family and for the entire society) was and still is an object of dirty political games and manipulations. And it is, first of all, Kuchma who should be blamed for this. By all accounts, the Melnychenko tapes added informational poignancy to the scandal that erupted around the murder of Gongadze, but we discovered nothing new as far as the content is concerned. It was common knowledge what the government and the Kuchma regime were like. There were only some not so essential details on the tapes. They proved again the essence of a regime that, regrettably, has not changed much. This is the problem that hinders our forward movement.

The Orange Revolution was a direct result of President Kuchma’s so-called new course. At a certain moment society felt a direct threat of authoritarianism and came out against this. Society was prepared for changes and radical reforms. But, unfortunately, there was no leader who could spearhead this movement. As a matter of fact, the Orange Revolution was a rearguard action at the moment. In 1999 there was a leader, but the masses were unprepared. In 2004 the masses were in a proper condition, but there was no leader. The ship of the revolution found itself without the helmsman, the helm, and the sails. And again, who stood on the stage on the winter days of 2004-05? The same people who had worked for Kuchma in 1999. There is little wonder that people no longer trust them. Everybody is aware of the political nature of the Tymoshenko and Lutsenko trials, but nobody is exactly rushing to support them. The opposition ratings are not rising. Small lies bring forth great mistrust. And if the lies are big, the attitude is negative. The so-called new leaders – Yatseniuk, Klitschko, and Kyrylenko – should also take this into account. If they opt for even the slightest collusion with the government, their destiny will be a foregone conclusion – they will face what their predecessors did.

The topmost stratum of the current Ukrainian elite, both in the government and in the opposition, is a state of political blindness. It is not learning the lessons of the past or drawing up recipes for the future. Its reflex actions resemble the jerks of Galvani’s frog to the electric charge.

Take, for example, the relations with Russia. While in the Kuchma era it was a partnership, albeit a ludicrous one, with endless and ineffective maneuvering between Moscow, Washington, and Brussels, now it is nothing but sellout of national interests from the Kharkiv Accords to the so-called gas conflict that resulted in transferring a part of our gas transportation system to Gazprom. The easy-to-assess loss for Ukraine is obvious, and what will those who, like Kuchma, are seeking out the easiest ways of striking a deal with Moscow by selling out the Ukrainian state are going to say?

This kind of policy will surely lead to a failure – if not now, then in the nearest future. And the growing tension in society is the direct result of this. As soon as they have patched a new hole in the economy’s well-worn coat, another one appears, but the premier says, looking with his lackluster eyes into TV cameras, that is keeping the situation under control. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak also thought so until a certain time, as does his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad. Those who keep coming to the Verkhovna

Rada walls are making economic and financial demands, but this is a temporary occurrence. When it comes to political slogans (which will happen very soon), one will have to think not only about how to walk from the beach but also about how to catch the nearest flight at the airport.

There is no danger so far, and there is time to change something. Such an opportunity was lost in October-November 1999, which resulted in the 2004 Maidan. Are we waiting for a repeat? Or shall we have enough wisdom to step back from the edge of an abyss?