Adrian Karatnycky
KIEV — For most of this week and last, Ukraine’s ruling
political elite appeared to be doing what it does best: behaving irresponsibly.
On this
occasion, Ukraine’s leaders appeared ready to plunge the country into a
potential political crisis at a time when #Ukraine faces strains on its hard
currency reserves, weak economic performance, and signs of an upsurge in
violence on the front lines of #Russia’s_aggression in the country’s east.
Driving the crisis was frustration with the leadership
style of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
Reform ministers chafed both at his imperious style and his tight control over
the lax pace of reform. President Petro Poroshenko’s allies were seen as no better,
pressing ministers with demands for special favors on behalf of special
economic interests and demanding new patronage posts with economically
sensitive responsibilities.
On Tuesday,
Poroshenko’s political party seemed poised to win a high stakes game of
brinksmanship. It pressed ahead with a vote for disapproval of the
government’s performance, which passed, followed in rapid
succession by a vote on the resignation of Yatsenyuk, who has headed and at
times impeded a government of effective reformers. That second, rushed
resignation vote failed Tuesday evening by 32 votes, including some 30 from the
Poroshenko bloc.
* * *
What had happened?
By all appearances, just a week before Poroshenko was
determined to rid himself of Yatsenyuk, whose tenure as prime minister has
included halting progress toward reforms, laced with a heavy dose of favoritism
and rents for key oligarchic business interests.
However, reliable sources in Western
capitals and in Kiev confirmed that U.S. and European leaders looked
unfavorably on the plan and sent two emphatic messages to Ukraine’s president:
1) add more independent professionals and reformers to the cabinet; and 2) avoid
the collapse of the government and new elections.
Western
leaders, who have put together a $27.5 billion bailout package for Ukraine, are
more than mere bystanders, they are stakeholders in Ukraine’s success. If there
are to be changes at the top of Ukraine’s government, they told Poroshenko, he
must guarantee that such changes will ensure stability.
Simply
put, there will be no new injections of financial support, which Ukraine’s
economy desperately needs at the beginning of April. Western leaders did not
issue their demand because they support or trust Yatsenyuk. They did so because
they knew that a period of political uncertainty can erode support for the
maintenance of sanctions against Russia: “Why should our economies make
sacrifices for Ukraine, when its leaders are unwilling to make economic
sacrifices themselves,” was how one EU-Ukraine hand put it to me in Brussels
last week.
The
multiple messages seem to have had the desired effect. By failing to prevail in
a vote on Yatsenyuk’s resignation, Poroshenko bought the prime minister a
half-year before a new vote can be held to strip him of his office — after two
additional tranches of IMF aid are
likely to come and the EU has made a June decision to extend sanctions against
Russia.
*
* *
The business and kleptocratic elite went
along with this script. Having seen Ukraine’s economic well-being dramatically
eroded in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of the Donbas and the takeover of
Crimea, Ukraine’s entrenched business elite is seeking to squeeze out every
remaining hryvna in preferential tariffs and rents. But it also understands the
folly of bucking the main source of Ukraine’s economic stability — western aid.
Participating
in a popular TV political talk show while visiting Kiev Monday, I was witness
to a surreal discussion. Legislators representing three of the coalition
parties, including the president’s, had called for the resignation of the
current government.
All the speakers were willing to see the country take
a leap into the political abyss without knowing where they would land. None,
however, could offer any semblance of an answer as to who would or even could
be the next prime minister, nor how ministries would be divided among the as
yet indeterminate configuration of the eight political groupings represented in
parliament.
Were Poroshenko’s gambit to fail, Ukraine faced the
prospect of protracted political deadlock. Had coalition talks collapsed,
several months of uncertainty would have been followed by new elections that
likely would bring very small gains for reformers, but larger gains for
populists and the opposition.
Such elections, moreover, would have given an impetus
to the political resurrection of Mikheil Saakashvili, whose rule as president
of Georgia demonstrated authoritarian tendencies that are now matched by
reckless charges and demagogic anti-corruption rhetoric, which have become an
established part of Kiev’s political scene since he took Ukrainian citizenship
nine months ago.
Surveying the balance of forces, Poroshenko chose to
fight another day. Even as his allies likely engineered a failed vote against
the government, he dispatched his chief prosecutor into retirement, opening the
door to a more aggressive attack on endemic corruption. It was high drama. But
given its lightning speed it resembled an amped up version of the “Three Minute
Shakespeare,” in which actors perform the Bard’s tragedy or comedy in blitz
regime.
However,
Poroshenko’s actions are a placeholder, not an answer.
A grand bargain within
the ruling parliamentary coalition is needed to expand the number of ministers
who are professionals and technocrats without close relations with the
country’s key political players. And the president must secure the resignation
from politics of his business partner and close friend Ihor Kononenko, who is
toxic and is perceived to be at the center of business-as-usual rent-seeking
practices.
For the second
time in Ukraine’s recent history, a president had attempted to bring down a
coalition government that emerged in the aftermath of a civic revolution. For
the second time, as in 2005, the country faced a perilous choice. The last
time, disunity between a president and prime minister opened the door to the
routing of reformers and the strengthening of corrupt government as usual.
This time,
there are six months to prove there is a chance for compromise and for averting
a deep drop into a political abyss: That, after all, is an outcome an embattled
Ukraine doesn’t need.
No comments:
Post a Comment