Ukraine's Orange Revolution

Adrian Karatnycky

From Foreign Affairs, March/April 2005

Summary:  The electoral triumph of opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko and the victory of the Ukrainian people over their country's corrupt leadership represent a new landmark in the postcommunist history of eastern Europe, a seismic shift Westward in the geopolitics of the region. But what will come next for the new president--and the rest of the former Soviet Union?

Adrian Karatnycky is Counselor and Senior Scholar at Freedom House.

Given eastern and southern Ukraine's overwhelming support for Yanukovich, a crucial domestic challenge will be bridging the divide that separates them from the western and central regions. There are strong reasons to believe that Yushchenko will succeed. Apart from the Crimea, no Ukrainian regions or cities have ethnic Russian majorities. Ethnic Ukrainians make up three-quarters of the population, whereas Russians constitute only 21 percent. The ideological differences between the regions can be defined in one word: media. In eastern Ukraine, the local press fanned the flames of regional separatism and painted Yushchenko and his team as ultranationalists and CIA agents. Eastern Ukrainians will slowly move beyond these stereotypes as they gain access to more balanced information and to direct contact with their new leaders. As important, the region's two most powerful economic actors, Akhmetov, owner of System Capital Management, and Serhiy Turuta, who leads the Industrial Union of Donbass, seem eager to cooperate with the new Yushchenko team. Working to neutralize the negative impact of the Russian media, which exert a significant influence in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine, will also be important.

The cycle of illegal political intimidation must end as well. Yushchenko expects vigorous prosecution of high-ranking officials suspected of participating in the election fraud. He has stated publicly that former President Kuchma is, like every citizen, answerable to the law. Yushchenko's closest aides make clear that there will be no amnesty for Kuchma. The new government will investigate his conduct in office, and if necessary, he will be prosecuted. Yushchenko has also declared that he knows who poisoned him, and he will take appropriate measures. There is also an ongoing investigation into a foiled election-night plot to blow up an area one kilometer in diameter in central Kiev and kill many members of Yushchenko's leadership team. Two alleged Russian gangsters, believed to have connections to Russia's security services, have already been arrested. Seven pounds of plastic explosives were found wired to their car.

Another major task will be media reform. State television has long been a wasteland of bland and propagandistic programming. Although much broadcast and print content has improved in the aftermath of Yushchenko's victory, there is still the question of diversifying ownership of privately owned media, which are held mainly by the new government's oligarchic opponents.

In the economic sphere, Yushchenko confronts a rising budget deficit and a slowdown in the country's growth rate, which last year was 12.5 percent and this year is expected to fall to around 6 percent. Yushchenko's closest aides believe that they will be able to pay for the growing debt by revisiting several insider privatization deals that cheated the treasury. One such case is the June 2004 privatization of the lucrative Kryvorizhstal steel plant, bought by insiders for $800 million less than the offer from a consortium of investors that included U.S. Steel. The Yushchenko team is also confident it can reassert control over the notoriously corrupt energy sector, and it is committed to eliminating Ukraine's preferential "special economic zones," which only benefit the oligarchic elite. With measures such as these, Yushchenko and his team feel certain that there will be no need to reduce public benefits or raise taxes.

REACHING OUT

Ukraine's most pressing international challenge will be to manage the relationship with Vladimir Putin's Russia. Putin strongly backed Yanukovich, and Russian-led election monitors attested to his victory in the first runoff. Putin spent four days in the week before the first-round vote promoting Yanukovich in lengthy press interviews and public meetings. Kremlin image-makers played a crucial role in advising and directing the Yanukovich campaign, and the Yushchenko camp believes Russia spent several hundred million dollars to help Yanukovich win. Yushchenko's victory is thus a humiliating defeat for Putin and a setback for Russia's hegemonic inclinations.

But Yushchenko's circle seeks solid, pragmatic relations with Russia. Advisers in the new government point out that as prime minister, Yushchenko worked to resolve Ukraine's payment arrears for Russian energy and that during that time Russian investment in Ukraine was at its highest. A day after his inauguration, Yushchenko traveled to Moscow for his first official international visit, to be followed by trips to Warsaw, Brussels, and Washington.

Even as he seeks to improve his relationship with Russia, Yushchenko's main goal is the consolidation of Ukraine's democracy and market economy through integration with the EU. Although such an aim once appeared fanciful for political as well as economic reasons, the orange revolution changed all that by generating weeks of positive publicity for Ukraine as an emerging European democracy. In central Europe, among the EU 's new member states, the orange revolution helped people vicariously recapture the spirit of their own civic movements of the 1980s. Lech Walesa traveled to Kiev to speak in Independence Square, as did politicians from Germany, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. European institutions are voicing their support as well. On January 13, the European Parliament voted 467 in favor, 19 against for a resolution calling on Ukraine to be given "a clear European perspective, possibly leading to EU membership." Although the vote was nonbinding, The Financial Times asserted that it "was the clearest sign to Kiev that the EU 's door is open."

But EU integration will remain a long-term objective. Ukraine's population of 48 million and its low level of economic development currently make entry into the common market forbidding. Poland's Kwasniewski believes Ukraine will be a part of the EU in 15 years. Some analysts contend that Ukraine could be invited to begin the drawn-out process of EU accession within 7 years. Yet Yushchenko is moving rapidly. He has entrusted one of his closest and longest-serving aides, Rybachuk, with the responsibility of heading the Ministry of European Integration. Operating at the level of deputy prime minister, Rybachuk will have authority to supervise every ministry's relevant work in meeting European standards.