Our Ukraine – Requiescat in Pace

For the past few months as the Our Ukraine political movement continued on its inexorable path toward self-destruction, I have purposely avoided writing about this sad state of affairs. This was partly due to fact that the Ukrainian press both here and in Canada has been following this political dnouement on a graphic blow-by-blow basis reminiscent of the coverage of the Hindenberg dirigible disaster, and it felt as though further commentary would be somewhat superfluous. 

However, to be frank, the primary reason is that the whole process has just been too painful and angering to deal with. A large part of my angst arises from the fact that I directly witnessed and participated in those heady events late in 2004, which brought such energy and hope to the tens of millions of long-suffering Ukrainians who finally decided they would be silent victims no more. As Yushchenko became “Our President” and Yulia took on the oligarchs as Prime Minister, it finally seemed that after the almost unspeakable horrors perpetrated against Ukrainians this past century, there was finally a future to look forward to.

Alas, it was not to be. Within less than a year, Ukraine found out that most of the oligarchs and politicos who had supported the revolution were just as self-serving, power hungry and venal as those who had given the Kuchma regime such a bad name. The country also found out that all those promises uttered by Yushchenko and his entourage during those exhilarating days on the Maidan were as empty of real conviction, intent and integrity as all those flowery promises of a socialist heaven propounded by the Communists during their reign of terror. To be fair, there were some who stayed true to the original ideals and tried to carry out real reforms, notably Interior Minister Lutsenko, Finance Minister Penzenyk, and former PM Yulia Tymoshenko to a large degree, but they proved to be more exceptions than the rule.

Most glaring and most exasperating, by contrast, was the transformation of Yushchenko from crusading revolutionary to complicit partner of the very band of oligarchic opportunists who had tried to turn Ukraine into a private fiefdom. As Ukrainian history has borne out on many occasions, the Ukrainian people were ready for real change, but their leaders lacked both the will and the skill. 

So this last weekend, as the Our Ukraine coalition party met for its third annual meeting, it was glaringly apparent that an obituary would soon be in order. With its public support and popularity dropping close to single-digit percentages, one of its key factions, the Reform and Order party lead by Victor Penzenyk, declared that they were leaving Our Ukraine and joining the opposition Yulia Tymoshenko bloc. President Yushchenko in his opening address to the party, shocked everyone when he lambasted the party’s leadership and recent ineffectiveness, calling for wholesale restructuring. With the congress in disarray, and without further ado, Roman Bezsmertnyj, current leader of Our Ukraine, declared a three-week recess to try and resuscitate a corpus that seems to have reached a terminally ill condition.

The party is now irreconcilably split between those who would follow Yushchenko’s motion and join in a coalition with the current ruling Regions party, and those who want to join the Tymoshenko bloc in opposition. It is now inevitable that the party will splinter along this line and Our Ukraine will revert to being but a tragic footnote in history. The Socialist party will shortly be history as well, having lost a good chunk of its supporters who became disenchanted with Oleksander Moroz’s own opportunistic betrayal of the revolution.

Fortunately, among these ashes of failed hopes and dreams, there is still some hope for perhaps a less idealistic but more realistic approach for rescuing the original revolution. It now looks like the recent turmoil may have finally forced Ukrainian politics into evolving from the unworkable anarchistic chaos of dozens of parties and factions into two fairly strong political movements. The Regions party clearly represents the conservative and to some degree reactionary right of Ukraine’s political spectrum, while the reformist opposition is coalescing and unifying around Yulia Tymoshenko. 

In future elections, there will obviously be a much more clear-cut choice for the Ukrainian voter, and with a real, consolidated opposition, the possibilities for abuse of power and political manipulation should be much reduced. So, Ukrainians, so used to suffering, will have to suffer a little longer, though as always, they will continue to cling to the hope that one day soon Ukraine will have its day.