Requiscat in Pace

By Volodymyr Kish

The Orange Revolution finally died a week ago after a prolonged five year terminal illness.  The newly elected President, Victor Yanukovich, must be laughing over much celebratory vodka, as his pitifully ineffectual foes, the once heralded heroes of the Orange Revolution, proceeded to destroy each other and hand him the reins of power on a platter.  He did not need to campaign; he did not need to criticize the programs and reforms of the incumbent President (there were few of any consequence); he did not need to debate with the braided hair princess; he did not need to put forth any kind of coherent program or economic policies.  He simply sat back and watched the former Orange forces undercut each other and self-destruct. 

Of course Yulia Tymoshenko is crying foul and claiming voter fraud, but even the impartial foreign election observers are saying that the elections fairly reflected the will of the Ukrainian populace.  They reflected immense frustrations with five years of lost opportunity.  They reflected anger that none of the promises of the Orange Revolution were carried out.  They reflected pervasive fatigue with the inability of Ukrainian politicians to agree on anything or do anything concrete to help the long-suffering citizens of this country. They reflected despair over the bankrupt state of the Ukrainian economy.  They reflected the massive resentment over the rampant corruption and lack of integrity of almost all politicians and government bureaucrats.  Above all they reflected a complete lack of faith in the current leadership of the country.  The people of Ukraine did not vote for Yanukovich – they voted against all the other politicians that had betrayed their hopes and dreams.

So we are now stuck with five years of President Yanukovich.  I don’t subscribe to the beliefs of some Ukrainian nationalist alarmists that claim that this spells the end of an independent Ukraine, that Yanukovich will now steer Ukraine back into the Russian Empire.  Yanukovich and his powerful oligarchic backers suffer no delusions about Putin and what he would do with them and their fortunes should he gain control of Ukraine.  They know full well that their future and their fortunes are much safer within a sovereign Ukraine, and it is my considered opinion that, though they will seek to improve relations with Russia, they will strive to play them off against the Americans and Europeans to their advantage.  Under the autocratic rule of Putin’s police state, their fate would be much more problematic.

It is probably ironic that in the short term, Ukraine will actually likely see some marked improvement under Yanukovich after the chaos that has ruled this country for the past several years.  To be frank, there has been no government in Ukraine for quite some time.  Parliament has been paralyzed by squabbles and anarchy.  Key cabinet posts have been vacant for long periods of time and scandals and corruption have been the order of the day throughout the administration. 

Undoubtedly upon assuming office, Yanukovich will waste no time in engineering the removal of Tymoshenko as Prime Minister and putting one of his own people in her place.  Although such moves may not lead to any meaningful structural or policy reform, they will at least bring some stability to Ukraine’s politics that has been missing for a long time.  With a stable majority government in place, the IMF, the EU, the U.S. and other world political and economic powers will once again resume much needed aided to Ukraine’s crumbling economy.  Ukraine is in desperate need of some breathing room to recover and gather her strength together.  Yanukovich, whatever his faults may be, does have some experienced administrators and shrewd bureaucrats in his entourage that will provide at least a basic measure of governance and care-taking, something sadly missing in recent years under Yushchenko and Tymoshenko.

The pause should hopefully also force the battered reform forces to do some deep soul searching and come up with a more realistic and united approach towards reviving the “revolution” that began on the Maidan it seems like so long ago.  The curse of Ukrainian history and its struggle for independence has always been the failure of Ukrainian leaders to unite around the cause.  Petty egos, the desire of every wannabe politician to be the “hetman”, regional prejudices and a lack of national vision has plagued the Ukrainian nationalist movement for centuries.  The need for a new generation of leaders who care more about country than their own ambitions has never been greater.

As for us here in the diaspora, we too should re-assess our priorities and the way we deal with our brethren in Ukraine, and particularly its politicians.  We need to realize that it will take more than emotional and sentimental gestures to make Ukraine a successful nation.  We need to hold its leaders to task and demand that they govern not only Ukraine’s history and language, but also its economy, its political and judicial system and its foreign policy.  We need less rhetoric and more pragmatism as well as administrative competence.  As the famous English poet John Dryden once aptly put it – “I’m a little wounded, but I am not slain; I will lay me down for to bleed a while, Then I’ll rise and fight with you again.”