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Ukraine Archive Ukraine-Contested ElectionNovember 22, 2004
Ukraine's political milieau has been deteriorating towards an oligarchy for some time now; since July 1994 it has been governed by Pres. Leonid Kuchma, who officially belongs to no party (in fact, both presidents of Ukraine have been associated with the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine). As with all of the former Communist states, the Ukraine endured a period of acute economic implosion right after 1991, then entered a period of recovery (in the late 1990's).
Today, Kuchma's protege and prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, is claiming victory in the country's presidential elections (BBC; Kyiv Post), while allegations of fraud are flying.
Deutsche Welle leans heavily on exit polls showing a large lead for Opposition leader, Yushchenko. The results are exceptionally close, and there are international election monitors who need to certify the results; Reuters reports: Electoral Fraud in UkraineNovember 23, 2004
The OSCE has given the US elections a clean bill of health (PDF), but criticized the Ukrainian ones. The margin was very close, and objections involve the state-controlled media's bias against the challenger, coupled with pressure on civil servants to vote for the Prime Minister; also, the results have irregularities (implausibly high turnout, for example). Kiyev is wracked by protests (BBC, AP, Deutsche Welle) According to Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), "a concerted and forceful program of election day fraud and abuse was enacted."
However, I doubt Lugar's criticisms will be heeded. You see, Kiyev has sent 1,640 troops to Iraq, of whom seven have died. This, despite Pres. Kuchma's initial opposition to the Iraq invasion and allegations that his government sold anti-aircraft missiles to Iraq. Astonishingly enough, the Ukrainian contingent is not being withdrawn anytime soon, despite acrimony over the elections [*].
The large groups demonstrating against the official election results are animated not merely by vexation that government is getting its way. That's certainly what's happening, with the ruling party perpetuating itself after 12 years in power. Kuchma is widely alleged to have poisoned relations with NATO and Washington by selling anti-aircraft equipment to Iraq in violation of UN sanctions (Kiyev's official position is that the deliveries never took place), then patching them over by sending 1,640 Ukraininans to serve in Iraq under Polish command. Considering seven Ukrainians have died in an unpopular war in order to paper over one of Kuchma's gaffes-which itself might have been motivated by the ability to skim a few million in cash off the sales1-they have ample grounds for resenting him.
Likewise, the 2000 Gongadze murder (BBC) , in which Georgiy Gongadze, a journalist from Georgia, was beheaded after accusing the Kuchma government of corruption (and after Kuchma was caught on tape wishing him dead). Ihor Honcharov, a former police officer, accused Pres. Kuchma of complicity in his murder, and subsequently died of injuries received while in custody (BBC). Hence, another compelling reason for Ukrainians to resent Kuchma.
Kuchma's choice of Viktor Yanukovych as protégé, whose criminal record is discussed here, was evidently intended to appeal to a segment of the plutarchy that has managed to remain indispensable to Vladimir Putin. Yanukovych, you see, began a stunning business career that saw him soar from a steel plant to director of a transport company ('76) then complete a degree while climbing the rungs of power, then switch gears and zoom up the political heirarchy. In 1997, Kuchma noticed him and appointed him governor of Donetsk, then prime minister (in order to succeed Anatoly Kinakh and Viktor Yushchenko himself-PMs. in Ukraine have typically served 18 months each).
Yanukovych has tended to support closer ties with Russia (which is considerably wealthier per capita than is Ukraine), and warned Russian-speaking voters in the eastern part of the country that Yushchenko will exclude the Russian language, or disenfranchise ethnic Russians. In the West, however, Yanukovych can barely even venture away from his motorcade. The Westerners, of course, have their sites on the EU. And can you imagine if George W Bush were to visit Mexico in late June '06 and urge Mexicans to please, please, please vote for Santiago Creel? And if there was evidence that the US government was utilizing loopholes in Mexico's strict campaign finance laws to promote Mr. Creel? It would not be irrational for Mexicans to be greatly indignant, not to say highly suspicious, if he did win.
According to opinion polls in the Ukraine, Mr. Yushchenko's support in the eastern regions was less than 10%; that of Mr. Yanukovych, less than 5% in the western regions. This is a degree of polarization far surpassing anything observed in the USA.
Ukrainian linksNovember 24, 2004
The top story in papers around the world is the electoral fiasco in Ukraine, where gigantic crowds of protestors have converged outside the parliament building in Kiyev. As mentioned in my previous post, the OSCE has expressed reservations about the fairness of the election
Courtesy of Sean-Paul Kelly (Agonist), we have the front pages of several Polish newspapers, which have passionately supported Viktor Yushchenko; the Czech daily Transitions has been somewhat lower-key in its enthusiasm for Mr. Yushchenko, but generally has emphasized his opponent's squalid past while playing down Mr. Yushchenko's own disturbingly aggressive moves (Bloomberg, Kyiv Post). The Guardian writes that Nato's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, became the latest international figure to raise concerns over the veracity of the count. Ukrainian publications like the Kyiv Post have emphasized the ability of Yanukovych to mobilize state-owned transport facilties to send counterprotesters into Kiyev from the eastern part of the country. This reminds me of Ion Iliescu's idea of trucking in coal miners from the Jiu Valley to beat up students demonstrating against his new government [June 1990; * *].
Several web logs are provocative sources of news, although the usual caveats apply when reading them: Neeka's Backlog (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; very well written, by someone actually participating in the protests in Kiyev); [the non-Europhobic] Europhobia (1, 2, 3; posts are extremely long because EP simply updates them though the course of the day with extracts from the media); Sue Not You posts several times, but I'm linking to the update that posts out parallels to other countries in the region, most notably Georgia (links for Fistful of Euros, Periscope, and others below)
UPDATE: Here are a few major stories from outlets in the EU: While Russian President Putin, speaking at the EU-Russian summit in The Hague, remained firm that the victory of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich was “absolutely clear”, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende finally clearly rejected the results as forged: “The election did not meet the international standards. Therefore the EU is not able to accept the result.”
....The Times has a map showing the breakdown of the votes in the elections
The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada pre-empted the country's supreme court by about two days in voting to annul the results of the 2nd round of Ukraine's presidential election ( Reuters; both the first round, 31 October, and the second, 21 November, met with OSCE objections). After about seven days of intense protest in Kiyev, during which rumors of Russian military intervention flew, the mood in Kiyev is celebratory (Neeka). Parliament's decision is non-binding but does place a lot of pressure on the Supreme Court and the current president, Leonid Kuchma, to call for new elections.
The party composition of the parliament (last elected in March 2002; there's only one chamber and all members serve a four-year term) leaned towards Yanukovych, but clearly there have been a large number of defections. Yanukovych himself had done poorly during the 3 weeks between elections, failing to garner the endorsements of any major 3rd-party rivals (the Socialists endorsed Yushchenko; the Communists endorsed no one, although Communists outside of the Ukraine appear to have alleged that Yushchenko is a stooge of the USA (and, incidentally, the less-odious EU).
Readers are urged to visit my page of Ukrainian links. I've continued to update it as I become aware of new ones.
Romania has just chosen a new president, Traian Basescu, of the "Orange" Liberal & Democrat Alliance. Many readers may wonder what is in store for Romania as it makes an historic break with the Iliescu/Ceascescu years (BBC, AP). His next job will be forming a coalition so he can get a prime minister in office; coalition partners are likely to include the Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR) and the Humanist Party, which perhaps suggests that his "nationalism" is not directed against Romania's significant Magyar-speaking minority.
Also, I have been trying to find out more regarding allegations that Yushchenko's "Chestnut Revolution" was stimulated or created by the US executive branch. This does not mean I'm saying Yanukovych is a champion of the working man, or that he's the victim of a CIA coup; however, the level of external involvement in Ukraine's elections from all sides is disturbing. The Kyiv Post reports that the NED and other quasi-governmental bodies received some US$65 million for exit polls (used as ammunition by the demonstrators, who argue that a majority of Ukrainians surveyed had expressed a preference for Yushchenko) and monitors; the pan-Slavonic character of the Pora movement is described here. Nor is this merely a familiar Slavic conspiracy theory; CBS/AP and Reuters are reporting much the same thing.
(Indidentally, I did not have any difficulty finding evidence that some of Yanukovych's supporters are quite Judeophobic; John Laughland had sought to discredit Yushchenko by associating his supporters with neo-Nazis, albeit rather loosely; naturally, there are ample supplies of Judeophobes to go around; here's a Yanukovych supporter who is mainly interested in mocking Yushchenko for having gotten himself poisoned with dioxin.)
There are some substantial differences between the internationally funded and administered support for Yushchenko, and the International Republican Institute's program to topple Venezuela President Hugo Chávez. First, while international campaign funding has serious problems-Yushchenko's legitimacy as a Ukrainian leader has been seriously jeapordized by the $65 million mentioned above, it is fair to say that $65 million probably did not motivate two million Ukrainians to demaonstrate for several days.
Second, the money that flowed from the West to Ukraine came from multiple organizations to multiple organizations. Compare this, if you please, to foreign support for the Venezuelan opposition to Hugo Chávez. Loathing of the populist president of Venezuela is international, naturally; he has close ties to Fidel Castro, a man who has indeed brought down infamy on the Latin American left (Randy Paul explains why, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). That alone has aroused a lot of resentment and alarm, whether in Western Europe or among the more conservative political groupings in Latin America. Nonetheless, the vast preponderance of money required to orchestrate the huge anti-Chávez demonstrations, coordinate sabotage against the Venezuelan economy, and pay for political advertising, came from the NED (on the US side; the NED receives contributions from donors around the world, so there's a distinct possibility that many non-US opponents of Chávez contributed. For an example of a UK-based anti-Chávez outfit, there is of course The Economist in London.) On the Venezuelan side, aid went mainly to a group called Fedecameras and the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers. These two groups are virtually conjoined twins, and have no real analog in the USA. Fedecameras might be likened unto the Chamber of Commerce, except that Fedecameras has far more powers; it acts as a quasi-cartel, enabling merchants to set higher prices. In April 2002, after the anti-Chávez coup-in which scores of Chávez supporters were killed-the president of Fedecameras was named President. He stepped down after a few hurs in office. The Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV) sounds like another labor union-indeed, it was the Venezuelan equivalent of the AFL-CIO. However, the CTV's rank-and-file membership largely deserted the organization after it declared a strike to oust the president (political strikes of this nature are illegal in both the USA and Venezuela, for obvious reasons; see Venezuela Analysis). It's a long story how the nation's largest trade union wound up in the pocket of the united anti-Chávez grouping; but don't forget that the AFL-CIO created and supported the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), now the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS-1997); also known as "Solidarity Center"; both it and the original AIFLD colluded with the CIA to prevent leftist control of foreign labor unions.
Whew! That's a lot of detail to explain how power was concentrated over the way in which foreign money intervened in Venezuela's domestic politics; I would be very surprised if this technology is not greatly improved in the future, to the point that the suspicions of people like Ian Tryanor are not even raised. However, in Venezuela, it had a unifed outlet of extraordinary high connectedness to all the buttons and dials of power in that particular country: business management of firms large and small, conservative elements in the military, most of the media, and even the management of the nation's largest federation of trade unions, as well as maangement of the parastatal oil company. In Ukraine, no such entity existed-for the opposition. Likewise Romania.
One more point: Ukrainian elections are to be repeated 26 December.
After several months of controversy, demonstrations, and posturing, the second round of elections in Ukraine is being held a second time.
According to Transitions, the temblors in the country are ongoing even after President Kuchma agreed to a replay of the elections: Still unresolved is the matter of Yushchenko's poisoning. The Kyiv Post ran a story (subscription wall) with the headline "Poison used on Yushchenko ID'd as TCDD, otherwise known as Agent Orange"; TCDD ("Dioxin"-an insecticide) is not Agent Orange, but rather, a mixture of as 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T (both herbicides) which was sometimes contaminated with TCDD as a result of poor production methods [*]. There is a link between Agent Orange exposure-in vast quantities-and the pesticide dioxin, but the two are very different chemicals. In any event, the ingredients 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T are also encountered in several commercially available herbicides, albeit those are under more rigorous scrutiny and most likely would not be contaminated with dioxin.
According to the article in Transitions, Yanukovych's campaign has been increasingly beleagured, with Yanukovych himself now employing more of the strident rhetoric used by his opponent, Yushchenko, shortly after the 2nd round of elections. Not wishing to be as "ham-fisted" as Russian President Vladimir Putin, and declare Yushchenko the victor even before the election is held, I shall refrain from discussing this as if the outcome is already obvious. There is an old saying of Poland, which is more literally true of Ukraine: that the country has no history, only neighbors. "Ukraine" literally means "border" (it's a cognate with Serbo-Croatian "Krajina," the hotly contested region of Croatia that borders w. Bosnia-Herzegovina); and in this conflict, both sides accused the other-with justice-of having been abetted by a foreign power. Was this more a battle for prestige, whose outcome is not terribly important? In other words, is it possible that few governments in the West would have been severely inconvenienced if Yanukovych had been inaugurated on schedule-and that the real purpose was to flex muscle in a theater where it could be done in a seemly manner?
Or was this a matter of spiting Putin in order to win the confidence of Eastern Europeans? After all, a large cadre of Social Democratic operatives, who earlier were assured of unchallenged regional control, are now lying low. In that case, Ukrainians have the option now of defying Moscow. It seems plausible that they also have the option of defying Brussels too, and probably Washington. If so, for how long?
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