Political crisis in Ukraine:
its evolution and lessons learnt

The political situation in Ukraine today is characterized by two key tasks, which are resolved by the current political regime: paving the ground for the existing President to continue his rule and ensuring that the results of the coming 2002 parliamentary elections suit the President. It is in this context that all actions and counter-actions of the main political players should be viewed: the cassette scandal, dismissal of the Yushchenko Government, appointment of Anatoliy Kinakh as the Prime Minister, introduction of the institution of state secretaries, formation of pre-election blocs for participation in the parliamentary elections, attempts to change the Constitution and the election legislation.

The issue of political crisis

Events during the past year more clearly demonstrated the peculiarity of the political regime in Ukraine. Earlier, there was the ideological confrontation between the Communists on one hand and all the other representatives of the political elite on the other hand (including the one in power), and conflicts that emerged were situational. Today, conflict among the Ukrainian political elite lies between its oligarchic and non-oligarchic components.

Recent trends have shaped the political system of Ukraine into three major segments:oligarchic (financial-political groups, etc.), civic-political (systemic parties, parliament as an institution, civil society and human rights organizations) and the administration (ruling elite or authority).

During the 1999 presidential elections an absolute consensus was achieved among the oligarchic segment (after the arrest of Pavlo Lazarenko) and a relative consensus was achieved between the oligarchic and the administrative segments around the idea of re-electing Leonid Kuchma for a second term. Attempts of the civic-political segment to counterpoise this alliance were not crowned with success. Consequently, an absolute predominance of the oligarchic and administrative segments of the political system over the civic-political and democratic one emerged. The procedure of elections had nothing in common with the implementation of the real spirit and mechanism of democracy. All the other presidential candidates, including leader of the Communists Petro Simonenko, could not take upon themselves the role of real political actors. 

All-Ukrainian Referendum of April 2000 – became the second important event in determining the evolution of the status of real and formal political actors. Certain distancing of Leonid Kuchma from the oligarchic groups and correspondingly, acceleration of the role of the administrative and law enforcing agencies led to a change of places in terms of influence in policy and decision making. A coordinated work of the whole system of power yielded fantastic results. The Referendum took place before the officially determined date.

Making full use of the procedure of voting in advance, 52.4% of the citizens supported the President. After this, the administrative, and law enforcing of power> continued their cooperation with the oligarchic groups, but in a qualitatively new capacity, as the most influential player of the Ukrainian political field.

Active work of the Yushchenko Government, death of Georgiy Gongadze and in fact, divided the administrative resources into two. One part of it as usual continued working with the oligarchic groups, but the other started cooperating with the civic-political segment.

Unfortunately, the President of Ukraine became a bigger ally of the oligarchic and not the civic political segment of the political system. Situational coincidence of interests played not the least role in this process, for example, in the case of large scale privatization, when the union of the President with the oligarchic bodies were placed against the Prime Minister V. Yushchenko and certain representatives of local governments. Finally, alliance with the President allowed the oligarchs to get rid of the Prime Minister V. Yushchenko, as their biggest political opponent.

The oligarchic segment of the political system with practically the silent consent and neutrality of the administrative segment pushed out the leader of the public to the periphery of politics, and severed him from the process of state decision making.

If we consider the question of positive or negative evaluation of the Government’s performance by various political forces in the parliament and see the results of the sociological research, we reveal the following. Initiating the vote of no confidence to the Government and demanding the resignation of Yushchenko, leaders of such parties as , SDPU (u), , did not reflect the opinion of the members and rank and file of their parties. It is important to note that, only one among them, the SDPU (u), crossed the eligibility threshold with the minimum number of votes during the last parliamentary elections.

Such a dismissal, illogical at first glance, of the Government became possible because of the fact that in Ukraine today we have a political regime, which is not envisaged by the existing Constitution. And the Government became the main hostage of this inconsistency between the real and the constitutional system of governance in the country.

Today the system of central executive power in Ukraine functions in such a scheme, when there are 4-5 centers of decision making in the system of the executive power and so there is the absence of one center for monitoring their implementation and be accountable for them. Apart from that, unlike the widespread practice in the country, whereby by the Constitution of Ukraine there is no stipulation that law enforcement agencies are politically and administratively autonomous in the system of governance. It is just a part of the whole system and should be fully incorporated into executive power, but in practice they are under the sole authority and control of the President. It also does not follow from the Constitution that the State Tax Administration is an autonomous quasi-governmental body and functions independently from the Government. But in practice the head of this executive body does not only refuse to coordinate and work with the Government in general, but also criticizes its own Government publicly.

The model set forth in the Constitution does not also envisage that oblast and rayon level state administrations are almost independent in terms of implementing management decisions and would be guided only by the position of the Administration of the President of Ukraine and not by that of the Government. Thus the issue of bringing the system of state executive power in consonance with the Constitution still remains open.

It is especially important to return to the Government its constitutional status in the best interests of the functioning of the political system. In particular, the Cabinet of Ministers should have more power and authority in personnel policy. Formation of the Anatoliy Kinakh Government unequivocally shows that, the Prime Minister is nothing but a formal counselor in issues of appointments of personnel. The final decision is taken by the Administration of the President and the President himself. Even if the Prime Minister has some degree of influence in appointments of the members of the Government, he has no involvement in appointing heads of the oblast administrations. But according to the Constitution, oblast and rayon state administrations create a single unified system of executive power together with the central Government. However, for achieving this aim of bringing back into reality the constitutional status of the Government with its full legitimacy, the Law is needed. The Verkhovna Rada three times approved the Law , which regulates these issues, but the President did not sign it until today. 

Such a queer system of governance exists in the country, when appointments to posts are made by one institution and responsibility for the performance of these appointees lies with a completely different institution. In such circumstances, sooner or later, a critical moment will emerge for the whole system of state power, when all institutions will simultaneously demonstrate their helplessness in resolving urgent issues, and some of them would even show their incompetence and irresponsibility.

Today we may have rules of the game for the domestic market, partially the shadow economy can be made official and the energy sector can also be pulled out of the criminal sphere. But finally, everything will depend on the Tax Administration, on the heads of the oblast administration, who just do not want to play by rules, worked out by the Government, as they were not appointed by the Government.

Actions of the Government, and the universal democratic rules set by the latter should have been supported by the whole system of executive power. But the system, stipulated by the Constitution, does not exist in reality. The State Tax Administration, Council for National Security and Defense, Administration of the President became self-sufficient bodies with unjustifiedly wide powers. 

One more problem – is that of some kind of inviolability of the law enforcing system of Ukraine. At the same time, the level of diletantism of the leadership of the Ministry of the Interior, Security Service of Ukraine and the Prosecutor General’s Office, which the whole world saw during the autumn of 2000, cannot but frighten those citizens who are in opposition to the power, but everybody, capable of critical thinking.

In order to resolve this, we should put forward the question of amendments to the Constitution, so that the system of agreement on candidatures for the posts of the Prime Minister and the Prosecutor General with the parliament that exists today, is extended to the posts of the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Defense.  It is also necessary to establish accountability of the law enforcement agencies before the parliament, because their role in protecting law and order and the life of the ordinary citizen is very responsible.

In connection with the infamous scandals, when the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies showed that they are either unable or are not willing to perform their official duties, the society, not believing the authorities as in the past, demonstrated its readiness to independently influence the situation. Thus, political confrontation in Ukraine had attained the character of a political crisis, which could have grown into socio-political crisis under certain conditions.

Interestingly, those in power and the media under their control, in everyway avoided the term , considering the obligations the term may ensue for them before the opposition. Another peculiarity is that, the present political crisis was rather the crisis of the presidential power, as it did not spread onto the socio-economic or governmental dimensions. Stable indicators of socio-economic development and positive evaluation of the Government’s performance showed relative stability in these areas.

Peculiarities of the movement

Despite the disparities and the heterogenous nature of the opposition, its unorganizedness and poorly coordinated actions, the clearly demonstrated the ineffectiveness, weakness and absence of readiness of the state power to face new threats and challenges from political opponents. As right from the very beginning of the scandal there were suspicions that, it was provoked and planned by the Americans or the Russians, the Ukrainian authorities for a long time did not show any reaction or response, waiting for additional signals.

After receiving wide support at the first stage (sociological polls showed that 42 to 46% of the Ukrainians supported the movement), the opposition later committed certain tactical and strategic mistakes.

First mistake of the opposition: is that its leaders could not come to an agreement on the following. During the mass actions, it is tactically not wise to propose any candidature for the post of the President, considering the absence of any single authoritative figure in its ranks enjoying nationwide popularity. This brought in certain contradiction among the opposition. On the other hand, the society did not hear any clearly articulated doctrine, future strategy or plan of action of the opposition for the period . Thus, a situational and tactical task of short-term mass actions overshadowed the need for articulating a greater strategic aim simultaneously.

The second problem is related to the refusal of Yulia Tymoshenko to conduct negotiations with the President at that time, when most of the opposition considered that such negotiations were indispensable.

The third problem consists in the fact that, the idea of conducting the referendum on no confidence to the President from the very beginning was doomed to failure, because of the absence of legal bases and the opposition does not have real possibility and capacity to conduct the whole process. Due to the cassette scandal and the Gongadze case, the activities of the opposition ceased to center around the main line of confrontation between the society and the power. Political conflict was transformed into confrontation of the oligarchic factions with the Yushchenko Government and due to several serious steps taken by those in power, it was minimized to a great extent. The next stage of activization of the movement is possible and realistic on the condition of publicizing of the full circumstances of the Gongadze case and the in connection with the starting of the election campaign.

Social thought on the

During this very short period the political crisis in Ukraine went through a quick evolution. At the end of November last year it started as a crisis of the presidential power (later considered as political crisis). But in January 2001, with the resignation and arrest of Yulia Tymoshenko and later with the campaign discrediting Yushchenko, it was changed to the phase of governmental crisis. The use of force on the opposition and the students 9 March 2001 was legitimized by the ideological bases contained in the famous , where the opposition was reckoned as . Hence it is normal to use force to deal with it. In addition to this, the governmental crisis as a result of the dismissal of Yushchenko turned it into a crisis of the opposition. As a result, at the beginning of summer, the executive represented by the Government, as well as the opposition was weakened, and the presidential power gathered strength. All through this period, the latter did not pay any attention to public attitude or expectations. Public opinion was considered to be the most insignificant part of the political crisis.

The presidential power did not trust the sincerity and conviction of the majority of its citizens or the electorate. Nor was it convinced by the thousands gathering at the walls of the Presidential Administration and the Verkhovna Rada, by those more than three million signatures in support of the Yushchenko Government, nor by the data of the opinion polls.

Answers of the ruling regime to these opposition demonstrations in Kyiv were mock manifestations of the groups in Simferopol, Luhansk, Kharkiv, forum of the youth and pop concerts in support to the President and the results of pre-arranged and orchestrated opinion polls.

But the public was prompt enough to formulate their opinions and conclusions on the reasons, substance and the unfolding of the political crisis. First Conviction: the authorities are involved in the disappearance of the journalist G. Gongadze, and the legitimacy of those means with which they execute their functions are under question.

Thus, according to results of the research conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the company , in February 2001, 22% of the citizens of Ukraine think that they are well and 68% think that they are somewhat informed about the disappearance of the journalist Georgiy Gongadze, the and the involvement of the high officials in it. Only every tenth interviewed said that he or she does not know anything about this caseand has never heard of it.

Awareness on the disappearance of the journalist G. Gongadze,
and the involvement of high level state officials in these events

	% respondents
Very well aware of and constantly interested in knowing more	22
Aware in some way, sometimes show interest in knowing more	68
Not at all aware, and never heard anything about it	10

Men are somewhat better informed than women of this case of the missing journalist and show more interest on the matter. People of older age (55 years and above) are more interested in this case. At the same time, a large part of this group of older age is not at all aware and never heard anything of this case. Number of those who do not know anything is the minimum among the age group – 34 to 54 years.

As is usually expected, the higher the level of education of those interviewed, the higher is the level of awareness and the higher is their interest in knowing more about everything related to the disappearance of Gongadze. One-third of those with higher education think that they are well informed on this matter, while the same is true for only every five among those with primary and incomplete secondary education.

Level of awareness or interest in the case of the missing journalist is not related to the place of stay of individuals, be it a village, small town or big city. The only exception in this case is the capital, where every third person thinks that he or she is quite well informed and is constantly interested in knowing more about the matter.

Citizens from the Western and the Central regions of Ukraine are the best informed and the most interested.

Any information, especially that concerning high level state officials, are not left neutral in terms of attitude to them and are evaluated from the position of trust or mistrust, that is, whether it is true or untrue. According to the opinion poll, 15% of the respondents fully trust these versions, 37% trust but would like to have a confirmation through international expertise. 15% of the respondents either partly or fully do not trust the versions of the cassette recordings on the involvement of high-level state officials in the tragic fate of the journalist. Every third Ukrainian has not yet decided, as to which side he or she should take.

Trust/distrust on the versions of the initiators of the as to the involvement
of high state officials in the disappearance of the journalist G. Gongadze

	% of respondents
Fully trust the version that high state officials were involved in the disappearance of the journalist G. Gongadze	15
Basically trust, but think that, this version should be checked by international expertise	37
Basically do not trust, and think that, the cassette recordings do not prove the involvement of high state officials in the disappearance of the journalist	8
Do not trust at all, and think that, the recordings are fully false	7
Difficult to say	33

Age and sex of those interviewed had no influence in such a broad division of trust and mistrust on the case. The estimates noted above are equally true for men and women, young and the old. Only those with primary and incomplete secondary education are less prone to trust the versions stated above.

Statistically, the place of stay did not influence the level of trust of those interviewed. In this case people in the rural areas do not differ from people in urban areas. Even those in Kyiv do not supersede those in other cities by their level of trust. Similarly, regions are also not a big factor influencing the nationwide attitude divide concerning the possible involvement of high-level state officials in the disappearance of journalist Georgiy Gongadze (on the question – is this version trustworthy or not). It is important to note that while people in the eastern regions are less informed about the matter than in the western regions, the former tend to trust in the version on the involvement of high-level officials in the disappearance of the journalist.

In February 2001, by an order from the Institute of Politics, the company GfK-USM (Ukrainian survey and market research) undertook an opinion poll of 600 Kyiv inhabitants (representative sample, error not more than 5%). Almost three-fourth or 72.7% of the Kyiv inhabitants think that the disappearance of the journalist Gongadze is a political case, while only 13.3% think that it is merely a common crime and nothing political. At the same time 39.5% in Kyiv think that the recordings made by Major Melnychenko are authentic, and 31.6% think that they are false (23.9% do not have any particular opinion).

According to the opinion poll conducted by the Razumkov Center at the end of April 2001, 9% respondents think that Melnychenko is a traitor, while 16% hold that – .

Thus, various poll results by various organizations and companies show that the majority questions the legimitamcy of the authorities and bodies of power. From this emanates the positive attitude to the movement, as is also seen in two nationwide opinion polls conducted by the company GfK-USM at the order of the Institute of Politics in February and May 2001 (sample of 1000 persons, error 4%). Only three or four out of a hundred do not know anything about this movement.

What do you feel about the movement ?,
(%)

	May 2001	February 2001
Rather positive	46.7	42.3
Rather negative	27.4	25.4
Difficult to say	22.7	28.3
Do not know anything about the movement	3.2	4.0

Almost half of the respondents were positive about the movement in May 2001, about one-fourth was negative and about the same number of respondents were still undecided. At the same time, majority of the respondents felt that, the way out of this crisis is not what the President and his team proposed and did. They did not explain and refute the accusations hurled against them, but ignored them, just as they ignored the public opinion and expectations.

In your opinion, in the light of the recent events (, movement) how should the President, Verkhovna Rada and the opposition react?,
(%)

President himself submits his resignation	28
President continues performing his duties	20
A Referendum on holding pre-term presidential elections takes place	11
Verkhovna Rada initiates the procedure of resignation (impeachment) of the President and draws it till the end	9
Verkhovna Rada and the Opposition tries to announce and conduct pre-term presidential elections	6
Difficult to say	26

Only every fifth person is convinced that the President of Ukraine should continue in his post performing his duties. About 26% did not yet decide what needs to be done by the political elite after the publicizing of the recordings of Melnychenko and the movements and mass actions organized by the opposition. At the same time,  54% of the population expressed that the President should resign, in fact, a significant part (28%) expects, that President will resort to this move himself and submit his resignation.

The second conviction, that grew among the citizens during the first half of the current year: initiating a governmental crisis in order to get out of the political crisis is a serious mistake.

In fact, it is not to the Government that the public gave the trust but to V. Yushchenko alone. His activities as a Prime Minister transformed him into a nationwide figure, whom the public invested their biggest social wealth – trust. Data of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology of January 2001 show that, 46.4% of those interviewed basically and fully trust V. Yushchenko (based on a nationwide opinion poll of 2000 persons, error 2.2%), while only 26.2% trusted L. Kuchma.
Closer to these data were the results obtained by the Razumkov Center at the end of April 2001. 59% of the respondents were negative about possible (at that time it was still a possibility) dismissal of the Yushchenko Government. Half of the respondents expected worsening of the economic situation in Ukraine as an outcome of the possible dismissal.

It is necessary to point out that, the trust and confidence in V. Yushchenko and the Government led by him was solely on objective grounds. Systematic observation carried out by the company GfK-USM and the International Center for Policy Studies of the last quarter of 2001 showed positive changes in the consumer confidence of the citizens. During the first months of this year the consumer confidence index rose by 1.2 points and stood at 80.7 (the index is from 0 to 200). Therefore, during almost half of the year, number of people, who expect improvement of their material well being in the coming half year, grew. In other words, for the first time in the history of independent Ukraine, the issue of future became a source of optimism and sustainability for a wider section of the people. And there is no wonder that this optimism was related to a concrete personality.

The third conviction revealed by the results of the public opinion poll: the opposition does not have the resources to overcome the political crisis in a manner, be-fitting for the democractic development of Ukraine.

The first deficiency in these resources is the absence of a charismatic personality, who would propose an aim explicable to all and achievable by all and organize everything and mobilize his or her influence on concrete groups of the population. As is seen in the data of the Institute of Politics (May 2001, empirical stage of data collection by the company GfK-USM according to its standard sample of 1000 persons), the respondents are not able to distinguish between the major players and determine the leader of the opposition.

Recently, political opposition has been quite active in Ukraine.
Who, in your opinion, is the leader?,
(%)

The opposition, in particular the Forum for National Salvation, from the very beginning, officially denounced to define its leader. Perhaps such a step was necessary at the first stage. But afterwards, absence of a leader only accelerated the centrifugal tendencies in the Forum, which was by nature born as a politically heterogenous entity, with differences among its major constituents. That which was not done by the elite, the population is unable to execute it. Half of those interviewed could not name the leader of the opposition. At the same time, every seventh thinks that, it is Yulia Tymoshenko, every eighth – Petro Simonenko and every ninth – Oleksandr Moroz.

Thus, ignoring of the public opinion by the presidential power, inability of the opposition to use public opinion effectively led to the following situation. Public, with their confidence and expectations were detached from participation in the positive resolution of the political crisis, which started a month before the beginning of the new millennium, and ended before the first half of the year 2001.

 

Conclusions

The President, the parliament and the political opposition consider that, the only way to overcome a systemic crisis in the state is through institutional changes. All parties in the political confrontation more than once spoke in favor of making amendments to the Constitution. The parliament did not support the implementation of the All-Ukrainian referendum results, which would increase the powers of the President to a great extent. Notwithstanding this, the President and his team continue to campaign for the need to constitutionally stipulate a presidential republic in Ukraine. The parliamentary opposition, in its turn, in the wake of the acute political crisis, attempts to change the model of state power to parliamentary-presidential or even, simply parliamentary. They have been successfully neutralized by the administrative and oligarchic segments of the political regime. Despite the fact that, both sides acknowledge the need for amending the Fundamental Law, no single side in the current composition of forces is really capable of doing this.

Further development of the country is stalled by the nature of the current political regime, the basis of which is the former party-economic nomenclatura and the class of the new oligarchs.  It is impossible to overcome the systemic crisis, which are conflict of interests between the current regime and the majority of the Ukrainian society, by returning to obsolete soviet-type management methods and decisions. 

The systemic crisis is aggravated with this specific compromise reached in interpreting the Constitutional stipulations: President is not the head of the executive power, and parliament does not form the Government. 

With the current balance of political forces in the state and the absence of clear normative or legislative interpretation of the relations in the triangle President-Parliament-Government, the dual interpretation of the current constitutional model of organization of power will remain a source of instability and tension in the nearest future. 

Recently, the President, using the mistakes of the opposition, renewed his status as the most influential political actor. Leonid Kuchma is neither ready nor interested in determining his successor or the politician, who has real chances of becoming the next President of Ukraine. This is one of the very reasons of dismissing and pushing aside V. Yushchenko from power and further discrediting him in oligarch-controlled and state-owned mass media. The President understands very well that, V. Yushchenko is most likely to win at the coming presidential elections (either pre-term or even in 2004 as scheduled). According to the opinion poll data, all other candidates, including the current President are lagging far behind.

Another reason, why the team of the President is compelled to support the discrediting of Yulia Tymoshenko, Oleksandr Moroz, Victor Yushchenko as well as leaders of local self governments and politicians by the financial-political groups is – the attempt by any means to form a pro-presidential majority in the next parliament.