Ukraine’s next president: public expectations and risks

The current situation, in which no one is sure about Ukraine’s further official course, is already producing markedly dangerous phenomena threatening our national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Now we know for certain that the next president of Ukraine will be elected on October 31, 2004, by a direct nationwide vote, and that the term of office will be five years. The political elite and broad strata expect this event to bring about certain significant positive changes in the socioeconomic and sociopolitical domains. The old stereotype is at play, whereby the new head of state is supposed to bring about more effective mechanisms and tools to solve pressing social problems. The means primarily that the new tsar, who will preserve all of the achievements of the past, will have a better sense of justice and what is good for his people. Thus far, the general public and many experts seem to overlook any hazards that might arise with the changes that will surely take place at the upper echelons of state power.

Despite the obviously contradictory nature of Ukraine’s socioeconomic and sociopolitical progress over the past decade, a system of economic relationships has taken shape, by and large, to which the key economic entities have adapted. Among other things, this is evidenced by economic growth boasting perhaps Europe’s highest rate in the past four years. Regardless of all those self-evident shortcomings of what can only be described as an unbalanced political system, Ukraine has succeeded in securing the key functions discharged in carrying out all tasks inherent in a modern state. As a result, the central budget has been adopted in timely fashion and generally implemented within the set timeframes; the state has been able to regulate the key sectors of the economy; civil rights and liberties have been granted, a degree of protection and public law and order, as well as social stability maintained. This means to belittle the objective desirability of applying certain adjustments to the nation’s political course in order to solve pressing social problems in a more effective manner. Outlining the most effective ways and means of such adjustments will constitute one of the key tasks in the initial period of the term of the new head of state.

Simultaneously, the future change of political leadership might be accompanied by exceptional economic as well as political risks. The latter could be generalized as threats, namely:

sharp decline in the efficiency of the political system, eventually rendering it practically incapacitated, resulting from large-scale unjustifiable and ill-qualified cadre replacements; disorganization of economic activity and unbalancing market mechanisms due to another round of large-scale redistribution of property, changing the operating rules for business entities; loss of control over the sociopolitical process, entailing public and social destabilization, causing hazardous decentralizing trends, eventually threatening the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.

The probability of such most unwelcome scenarios noticeably increases in view of the lasting sharp confrontation between the political forces led by the key presidential candidates. From this flows the emphasis of the warring parties on a constant exchange of blows, as in a heavyweight boxing bout. True, the audience will not know, not until November anyway, who is Klychko and who is Lewis. Unlike boxing, where the boxer’s health is at stake, the current political bout in Ukraine is a clear and present danger to society as well as the state. In this context, one ought to remember what happened in Donetsk, Lviv, and Verkhovna Rada (with reverberations reaching as far as Strasbourg).

Worst of all, both the leading political forces, engaged in their hostilities, and society as a whole do not seem to consider precisely how and in what strategic direction, using what team, the new political leadership will steer the national political course. In a way this applies to both those forces generally relying on the continuity of the current powers that be, and those declaring their alternate approach.

In order to adequately assess the current situation, it seems worth considering the current political experience of established democracies. In the United States, where the presidential elections will take place sometime later than in Ukraine, the key political forces have generally formulated and made public their campaign programs, so that they are now targets of public debate, with the nominees measuring swords on everybody’s TV screen. Similar approaches are practiced by the European democracies. Most importantly, the leading political forces proceed not from their ideological tenets, but primarily from the pressing social problems. A vivid example is Germany basically altering its strategic course in the social realm currently being waged by the ruling Social Democratic Party in general, and by Gerhard SchrЪder in particular. The German Social Democrats, who have always championed social priorities in federal policy, are actually dismantling the “social state of general welfare.”

Thus the Ukrainian political forces — and, of course, their presidential nominees — should make their stands perfectly clear with regard to the acute socioeconomic and sociopolitical problems; they should propose ways, means, and resources aimed at solving these problems. We believe that such priorities include:

1. Preserving (preferably furthering) the economic growth rate achieved in 2000-03 and making pertinent structural adjustments to introduce progressive economic development investment models;

2. Cardinally enhancing the social orientation of the economic reform and solving the most pressing social problems — primarily in overcoming mass poverty and asserting a modern middle class in Ukraine — while reducing the unjustifiable differentiation of incomes and distribution of property;

3. Furthering the competitiveness of the Ukrainian economy, relying on upgraded market mechanisms and the state system regulating the economic process; providing favorable conditions for the development of small and medium business, working out and implementing a purposeful national policy in regard to the regulation and stimulation of large-scale domestic capital, in order to correct its current deformities, turning it into the prime force of the Ukrainian economy and the key entity of Ukraine’s competition with other countries;

4. Introducing an effective and politically responsible political system in Ukraine, one capable of actually meeting European standards, primarily in terms of securing human rights and freedoms, as well as the further democratization of Ukrainian society and the state by substantially increasing the role of representative institutions, above all that of Verkhovna Rada, in working out and implementing national policy;

5. Asserting a civil society in Ukraine, as is the case with the established European democracies, helping strengthen the party system, affirming several powerful political parties in the Ukrainian parliament, capable of assuming responsibility for the effective performance of the political system, and providing the conditions required for an extensive and free public debate; seeing that citizens can actually express their views and persuasions, primarily via independent media;

6. Actually implementing Ukraine’s European choice as the basis of its foreign policy course, provided this society and state consistently move toward the European economic standard, in terms of well-being for broad strata, as well as in other social spheres; with this aim in mind, it is necessary to take a clear-cut political stand, above all with regard to the Russian Federation and the United States, otherwise it will be impossible to create the conditions required for Ukraine’s actual integration into the European democratic community.

We believe it of principal importance for the presidential candidates to do more than declare these tasks in their campaign speeches; they should offer this society feasible programs containing solutions to these problems, complete with detailed action plans and resources. The Ukrainian Establishment and society as a whole must be confident that the next president and his team will actually seek — and, more importantly, will be able — to avoid the aforementioned hazards, in conjunction with future top cadre reshuffling, and that they will simultaneously be able to secure Ukrainian national progress in the next five years.

Unfortunately, there is no more or less convincing evidence that the key presidential contenders (from the party of power and from the opposition) are actually concerned about any of these problems, crucial as they are for the destiny of the Independent Ukraine — or that they will be able to get down to solving them several months later. This situation of uncertainty with regard to Ukraine’s subsequent political course creates markedly dangerous phenomena even now, threatening Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. In particular, we wholeheartedly share the Crimean Tatar leadership’s concern about supplying the socioeconomic and ethnopolitical needs of the Crimean Tatar populace, but we also consider that playing the national Crimean autonomy card again is extremely dangerous. We are alarmed even more so by the increasingly insistent attempts to brainwash people in western territory of Ukraine, making them allegedly a separate entity, saying they could and should form the so- called Galician state.

Under the law in force, three months are left until the official launching the presidential campaign. Hopefully, the leading political forces and their candidates will use this time to come out with clearly formulated and sufficiently convincing answers to principal questions with which Ukrainian society is preoccupied. We further hope that the times when one voted with one’s heart [an allusion to the Soviet period when one and all were supposed to cast their ballots for the only party-nominated candidate “with your heart” — Ed.] are history, and that both the elite and the general public will rely on the candidate’s actual capabilities and professionalism in choosing the next head of state. At the same time, the current hopefuls in the presidential marathon must be aware that their present aloofness from the pressing, vital social issues paves the way for those who, unlike them, can demonstrate their ability to solve these tasks. Ukraine has for quite some time witnessed public debate concerning a so-called third force. Conditions might suddenly appear such that this third force will materialize as a social necessity.