Thursday, February 18, 2016

Ukraine: Into and out of the abyss

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.

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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.

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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.






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