Yanukovych benefits from strong Svoboda Party

I was, in a sense, pleased with the resolution of the European Parliament (EP) released on December 13. It shows that all the same the EU, at least the MPs of the EP, have the patience to wait some more for Ukraine. We thought that the fall of the 2011 would be the crucial period. And then the lights would go out. But in the resolution MPs suggest that the association agreement can be signed, and I quote: “perhaps in November 2013 in Vilnius.” Then, as a German politician told me, there will be a long process of ratification of the agreement in the parliaments of the EU, and this, as I may guess, can last for nearly two years. Therefore, we all understand that before that we will have presidential elections and can hope for new options, including the two positive ones (from my point of view): 1) strengthening of the democratic vector in the country by Viktor Yanukovych or 2) his defeat in the elections and peaceful retirement (which means that at some big celebrations instead of three there would appear four former presidents and would lay flowers, give interviews, etc.).

The resolution clearly states that Ukraine is a “European country with European identity.” Besides, the resolution shows that the importance of the Yulia Tymoshenko case is not as prominent as it used to be. The EP considers a wide range of criteria: “democratic principles, justice, independence of the judiciary, and freedom of media.” Who knows… I do not rule out the possibility that in 2014 we might see a non-standard solution to Tymoshenko’s case. Perhaps, someone in the office of power in Kyiv has already realized that such a decision should be made, even if it would interfere with the interests of the authority, because the opposition is weakened anyway and the financial interests of the Yanukovych family are well provided for.

There is still one more aspect to this – the Svoboda Party. The EP urges the Ukrainian parties not to cooperate and not to support it. Is this an intervention? For better understanding of the position of the European Parliament, I would like to remind about the experience of the recent decades. Europe, including Germany, for a long time debated the question about how much “radicalism” can a state “absorb” and tolerate and what amount is already dangerous. The EP states that “racist, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic attitudes are contrary to the basic values and principles of the EU” (it is difficult to argue with this) and that they are concerned about the influence of this party. I think everyone in Ukraine understands the racist, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic attitudes or similar arguments do not address any of the acute problems of the present-day Ukraine and its citizens. On the contrary: such positions and political players give both Russia and the politicians of the EU a perfect argument to say that “Ukraine is still not ready to join Europe” or, even worse, that it is an uncivilized country and therefore should stay in its far corner.

Remember how the apparatus of Yanukovych excluded BYuT from the regional elections in Lviv in 2010 (they created a clone of BYuT there)? This brought Svoboda a huge success in the elections and paved them a path to future success. The government, if to take the cynical point of view, did a wise thing: by promoting the nationalist wing of the opposition they weakened the whole opposition, especially in the eyes of Europe. I am not a supporter of the “conspiracy theory” but it is clear that Yanukovych benefits from strong Svoboda Party even for a second year student of political science.