Home pagePress CenterIn the Media Celeste Wallander, senior fellow and director of the Russia and Eurasia Program, was interviewed March 24 by Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
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Celeste Wallander, senior fellow and director of the Russia and Eurasia Program, was interviewed March 24 by Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
How could you assess Moscow's stance as far as the elections in Ukraine are concerned? Why is Russia so careful about showing its preferences now?
Russians officials have signaled a clear preference for the Party of Regions led by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, and Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. This preference is rooted in several understandable factors: the Party of Regions is based in eastern Ukraine, which has close economic, cultural, and social ties with Russia; the party leadership is on balance more interested in developing economic and political relations with Russia than with Europe, especially in the context of the Single Economic Space involving customs union and other mechanisms for reducing economic barriers between Russia and Ukraine; and leaders of the Party of Regions are less committed to transatlantic integration for Ukraine, and are not strong supporters of Ukrainian membership in NATO and the EU.
However, I think we cannot forget that for the Russian Kremlin the other parties competing in the Rada elections – those of the Orange coalition that won the presidential election in December 2004 after the fraudulent results of November 2004 were overturned – symbolize the failure of the Kremlin’s attempts to aid the Kuchma/Yanukovych regime in carrying out a fraudulent election process so that the regime would not have to give up power. Since the Russian political leadership under Putin rules Russia by virtue of similar fraudulent political technologies which deny Russian citizens the opportunity to choose their leaders in free and fairs elections, and to hold the leadership accountable for its actions and policies, the Kremlin sees such failures in Ukraine and Georgia as a threat to its own rule. While factors such as commercial and cultural ties between Russia and Ukraine are, in my view, legitimate national interests which should be the basis for Russian foreign policy, the Kremlin’s fear of free and fair elections in the post-Soviet countries is purely a narrow interest of the Putin regime, and does not serve the interests of Russia’s citizens.
That said, the Kremlin has been more restrained in its stance and policy on the current elections than it was in 2004. While it has expressed a preference, it is not intervening as directly or massively in the current elections as it did in the fall of 2004. This is in part because of limited opportunity: its preferred leadership is not in office and so it cannot work with it on actions to conduct fraudulent elections. But it is also a matter of learning the lessons of 2004: direct interference in the election caused a backlash against Russia within Ukraine and may have motivated Ukrainian citizens to oppose the fraudulent results. That is, Russia’s actions far from preventing the Orange Revolution helped to create the conditions for it. Recognizing this, the Putin leadership and its circles of political technologists have adopted a more low-key approach, not wanting to motivate higher voter turn-out for the Orange parties.
What results of the elections would the West be satisfied with? What about Moscow?
The West’s hopes for the elections are in two areas. The first and most important is that the elections be conducted in a free and fair manner, that international observers and domestic election monitors can freely observe and report on their conduct, and that all Ukrainian election laws and international standards are met. To the extent that the United States has a long term interest in Ukrainian development and Euro-Atlantic integration, that interest is served only if and as Ukraine develops the institutions and procedures of a stable democracy. On this level – the level of American strategic interests in the European and Eurasian region – who wins the Ukrainian elections is irrelevant, just as who wins the German elections, or the British elections, or the Polish elections, is irrelevant. The U.S. has interests in and relations with countries first and foremost, not with this or that leader. As long as Ukraine continues on the path of democratic transformation and therefore has a government chosen by and supported by its citizens, long-term U.S. interests in the region are served.
That said, of course it is the case that different democratically elected governments matter for U.S. interests. While it is enough for U.S. interests that Ukraine be democratic, it is better if that democratic Ukraine chooses to be globally and transatlantically integrated. It is fair to say that from the policy and campaign statements of Mr. Yanukovych, it is unlikely that if he were Ukraine’s next Prime Minister that he would support a strong policy for Ukraine’s global and transatlantic integration. Although that would be an obstacle for closer economic, political, and military relations, as long as the elections which might bring him to power were truly free and fair, the U.S. would have to recognize that the resulting government is the choice of Ukrainian citizens.
It is not clear to me that the Russian government cares whether the elections are free and fair. This perhaps seems harsh, but given that President Putin immediately congratulated Alyaksandr Lukashenka for winning presidential elections in Belarus which were so egregiously fraudulent and which so obviously violated all the conditions of free and fair elections, I think there is plenty of evidence that the Russian leadership only cares about results.
However, I do think that the Russian government, while it would prefer a Ukrainian government headed by the Party of Regions, would reconcile itself to working with a new Orange Prime Minister. After all, it was President Viktor Yushchenko’s government that signed the gas deal this past January 2006 which was so beneficial to Gazprom and Russia.
How do you assess the pre-election campaign in Ukraine, the situation in the country in general? Do you expect the elections in Ukraine to be free and fair?
The conduct of the election campaign in the run-up to the March 26 election has been very open and fair. The Party of Regions and other parties out of government (including, I might note, the party of Yuliya Tymoshenko, a strong critic of President Yushchenko) have been able to campaign freely. They have had access to media, they have been able to meet with voters, their representatives will serve on election commissions and as election monitors. There may be instances of local failures to meet the rules for election-day procedures, but there is no systematic, nationwide use of “administrative resources” to create unfair advantages for the governing party, as there was in 2004. Unlike in Belarus, people can meet the candidates, candidates can hold rallies, and political leaders are not being arbitrarily arrested or detained.
If there are instances of violations of the rules, I very much hope that international and domestic monitors will document and publicize them, whoever is the guilty party, and whoever is the party that benefits. Election monitoring is about keeping the government honest and accountable, and that applies as much to President Yushchenko’s government as it did, belatedly, to former President Kuchma’s government.
The situation in the country is positive in that citizens are interested, active, and informed about their choices. There is a great deal of criticism of the current government for its policy failures of the last year, of which there are many. While I very much regret the failures of the government – primarily for failure to create transparency, create the conditions for foreign investment and economic growth, and attack corruption in the government and in business – I think that there is no question in the long run that the ability of Ukrainian citizens to criticize and hold their government accountable will help Ukraine to develop as a prosperous and successful country.
What impact might the external factors (the gas crisis, the elections in Belarus, the US and Europe's constant signals of support towards Kyiv) have on the elections in Ukraine?
External factors that you mention may have some affect on the elections, but through their affect on the attitudes of Ukrainian voters toward their leaders and their policies. Some Ukrainian voters blame Russia for the gas war, but others blame their own president. Some Ukrainians are drawn to the idea of Ukraine being an integrated European country, and therefore support the Yushchenko government for progress toward NATO membership. But many Ukrainian citizens do not want Ukraine to become more integrated with Europe, and this is a source of their lack of support for the government’s policies. Many Ukrainians – perhaps more than many Russians understand – do not favor policies that would harm Russian-Ukrainian relations, and President Yushchenko has to find a way to assure those voters that his support for Ukraine’s development does not have to harm the country’s relations with Russia if he wants their vote.
At this point in time, my sense is that there still a divide between the Ukrainian voters who see their choice as between Europe and Russia. That is very regrettable – I do not think that there is any such necessary choice – but it is also understandable given the atmosphere of the Orange Revolution, the very unfortunate confrontation over gas pipelines, and the rhetoric of western “interference” in the “color revolutions.”
However, as in elections anywhere, in every democracy, the most important issues affecting voters in Ukraine are their hopes and beliefs about the policies of their government and the opposition challengers on their everyday lives: the economy, social services, employment, schools, and their hopes for a better life. The big foreign policy questions affect those primary concerns of voters, but they are not the keys issues for voters. Leaders have to get their domestic policies right, first and foremost, if they want the support of their citizens.
From your perspective, after these elections what would be Kyiv's foreign policy towards both Russia and the West?
To some extent, there will be little change in Ukrainian foreign and military relations after the Rada elections. Under the new constitutional arrangement, the Rada will choose the prime minister and most of the cabinet ministers, but the minister of defense and the minister of foreign affairs will continue to be chosen by the president of Ukraine, and to be accountable to him (or her). So it is likely, although not certain, that President Yushchenko will keep Anatoly Grytsenko as defense minister and Borys Tarasyuk as foreign minister, and thus there will be continuity in Ukraine’s foreign and defense policies. Since both of those leaders are very strong and successful advocates of Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration, we should expect that Ukraine’s progress toward global and transatlantic integration will continue, whatever the outcome of the Rada elections.
That said, of course it will matter for Ukraine’s foreign relations who the prime minister will be. In order for Ukraine to join Europe, whether through NATO, the EU, or some other route, there will have to be serious and difficult reforms in its political institutions and economic policies. These are the responsibility of the prime minister and his (or her)
Government. If the Party of Regions were to win a sufficient plurality to form a government without any of the Orange parties, the Prime Minister (Yanukovych?) would have the power to block progress toward Euro-Atlantic integration, if he (she) chose to use that power.
On the other hand, if the Orange coalition parties receive enough votes to attain a majority in the Rada and thus choose the next prime minister, we should expect a re-affirmation of the current government’s policies of global and Euro-Atlantic integration. Furthermore, I think it likely that the Orange coalition parties will learn an important lesson for their failures over the past year: that their failure to live up to their promises to their voters from December 2004 nearly lost them this election, and thus nearly lost them the right to rule. That should, I would hope, teach the current Ukrainian leadership that it has to get serious about the reforms that it has promised in order to begin to deliver the better lives that Ukraine’s citizens expect. If they fail to learn that lesson, and to act on it, they may have friendly relations with the U.S. and Europe (and I hope with Russia), but there will be little basis for strong integration or partnership with the transatlantic community in the next few years.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions; accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in these publications should be understood to be solely those of the authors.
