Already, much of the outside coverage of the upcoming Ukrainian presidential election, scheduled for January 17 2010, has boiled down to the absurd notion that “pro-Western” and “pro-Russia” forces are going head-to-head next year. To understand that the issue is a little bit more complicated than that, one can look no further than the candidacy of current Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Yulia Tymoshenko’s glamorous image, coupled with the prism of sexism that can often distort a female politician’s nature in the public eye, hides an iron-clad will to succeed. Famous for her bold and even inflammatory rhetoric during the Orange Revolution (at one point, she was quoted as saying that Donbas region of Ukraine might as well be cut off from the rest of Ukraine with barbed wire, due to the region’s lack of support for Victor Yuschenko), Tymoshenko neverthless knows when to play ball with the Russian Federation. Even her desire for Ukraine to eventually join the EU is tempered by placating rhetoric toward Russia. Unlike Western commentators, who don’t have to live next to Russia, Tymoshenko is well aware of the possible ramification of long-standing political conflict in her neck of the woods.
The real challenge for the Ukrainian electorate right now is trying to decide which candidate is better suited to fight corruption. When I spoke to Nicholas of Kiev Ukraine News Blog to get his opinion on the situation, he replied that
“[Tymoshenko] will certainly try to curb corruption and maybe successful if the oligarchs do not stand in her way. Her first order of business is to bring the rule of law into Ukraine. Second would be to fire most judges and bring in some fresh blood. Judges are extremely corrupt and there is no way to rehabilitate them. Third, clean up house in the Interior Ministry.”
Relations with Russia, the EU and the United States take a backseat to the more immediate problems facing Ukraine at this juncture, and not even Russia’s recent military conflict with Georgia can quite distract from internal problems (even if President Yuschenko did attend various photo-ops in the aftermath of that debacle). Although rhetoric about the U.S. “meddling” (most recently in the latest round of the Ukraine-Russia gas spat) figures into the national discourse, it’s hard to worry about other countries when your own is literally falling apart. Nicholas’s point about corrupt judges is especially salient – if the cogs and wheels of the justice systems are broken, Ukraine’s very identity as a nation is blurred by the enduring free-for-all.
My anonymous source at a local prosecutor’s office in Kyiv recently mentioned the appalling data on the amount of people currently spending time in prison – aside from the violent criminals, these are largely small fish. A great deal of “bigger fish” – criminals that commit fraud on a massive scale, for example – get to buy their freedom. How are Ukrainians supposed to feel about being Ukrainian when they see this happening all around them? How can you function as a citizen if you cannot put your trust in the state?
Nicholas went on to remind me that
“Corruption is a way of life in Ukraine. It’s been around since Communists came into power in 1918. It’s also a way for many civil servants, doctors, teachers, etc. to supplement their miserable state salaries.
Bottom line, in my opinion, corruption will be around for many years to come, but someone has to start, sometime.”
Right now, Yulia Tymoshenko has positioned herself as this “someone.” One does have lingering doubts about her style of leadership, however. When she poses with a katana, ostensibly to present herself as someone ready for a hardcore battle against corruption, one gets the distinct whiff of Cult of Personality about her.
Nearly two decades after the demise of the Soviet Union, the old reflex to rely on politicians whose own rhetoric can be just as absurd as any foreign “expert’s” proclamation is still there. Quite simply, the population, the older generation especially, is not yet used to interrogating its elected officials quite on the same scale as in older democracies.
Only time can tell whether or not Yulia Tymoshenko is up to scratch this time around, but, at the very least, it is important to stop categorizing her in such broad terms as “pro-Western” or “pro-Russian.” The real question is whether or not Ms. Tymoshenko is pro-Ukrainian, in the real sense of that word.