Securing an Orange Victory
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The political forces that had made the democratic Orange Revolution of 2004 watched dumbfounded as their bitter rivals, the Russia-friendly Party of Regions, took power by peeling away one of the Orange coalition’s parties to create a ruling majority about a year ago.
Now, after a bitter political struggle and stalemate between the “Orange” reformist, President Yushchenko, and the Regions party, the Orange forces have made spectacular comeback.
Ukraine’s Central Election Commission shows that as a result of a vote on Sunday, Ukraine will have a narrow, eight vote pro-Western Orange majority in parliament and a government likely to be headed by Yulia Tymosehnko.
If the Orange parties succeed in adding the moderately pro-Western party of Volodymyr Lytvyn, they will have a comfortable majority, approaching 50 votes in a 450 seat Rada, Ukraine’s national legislature.
The biggest winner is Ms. Tymoshenko, who almost certainly will be the country’s prime minister. Her eponymous bloc has captured over 30% of the vote, nearly 10% more than the party won in the legislative elections of March 2006. She ran a brilliant campaign with the best TV spots and a moral message calling for an end to corruption and cronyism.
Mr. Yushchenko has strengthened his hand, as well. His decisive actions this summer forced a new election amid charges that Regions Party officials were bribing dozens of “Orange” deputies to gain a constitutional majority through their defection to the ruling majority.
In June, after a bitter standoff that threatened to degenerate into armed confrontation, Mr. Yushchenko issued decrees that dissolved parliament. Through skillful negotiation with Regions Party moderates, he secured their agreement to take part in what amounted to a snap election.
If Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Yushchenko were the winners, Viktor Yanukovych is the big loser. For the third time in three elections, either he or the movement he heads has lost. In 2004, Mr. Yanukovych lost presidential elections to Mr. Yushchenko, but his backers conspired in a massive voter fraud that sparked the Orange Revolution.
In 2006 Mr. Yanukovych lost parliamentary elections to the Orange coalition, managing to gain power because of the political betrayal of the Socialist leader, Oleksandr Moroz, whose party was punished on Sunday by voters and is no longer in the legislature. This time, too, he and his coalition partners have narrowly lost the vote.
For the first time since it attained independence, Ukraine is on the verge of a stable pro-Western majority interested in full integration into the European Union and the Euro-Atlantic community, committed to shaping a unified Ukrainian civic identity, pledging to fight corruption, and eager to reduce reliance on Russia.
Crucially, it will press forward with efforts to ensure energy diversification and to move from over-reliance on Russian energy. Key priorities will, including the completion of an Odessa-Brody-Gdansk pipeline that would bring oil from Central Asia and Azerbaijan through Ukraine to Poland and the EU as well as eliminate the shady middlemen who have made billions of dollars in recent years for simply arranging the shipment of gas from Turkmenistan.
With Ms. Tymoshenko as prime minister, Ukraine’s Orange-tinted government also is likely to pursue investment-friendly policies to sustain GDP growth that has averaged over 7% since 2000. In recent months, she moved to the right, jettisoning talk of joining the Socialist International, and stating her party’s affinity with Europe’s center-right Peoples’ parties. She also has added a number of budget-balancing market liberals to her team, who will work cohesively with the center-right economists in the Our Ukraine bloc.
Despite encouraging signs that the Orange Revolution’s values are back on top, the country remains deeply divided. The Western-leaning Ukrainian-speaking West and Center are overwhelming Orange with support ranging from between 65% and 90%. In the Russian-speaking East, the Regions Party and its Socialist and Communist allies command between 80% and 90% of the vote.
On election day in the city of Donestk, a Party of Regions sound truck became an emblem of this cultural and political divide. “Us or them!” it intoned, emphasizing the longstanding regional rift between East and West.
While this divide does not threaten the disintegration of the country, it does threaten to divide it into two non-communicative and hostile camps.
One year ago, President Yushchenko had sought to heal this divide with a “universal” agreement that shaped common approaches to unite the leaders of the Ukrainian state. These commitments were discarded by the Regions’ leader, Mr. Yanukovych, soon after he came to power.
Now with power in their hands again, Ukraine’s Orange leaders will need to address this divide in three ways:
• First, by promoting national unity through the vision of Ukraine’s European identity and its destiny within the European Union, an idea that now has resonance nationwide.
• Second, by reaching out to the Russian-speaking Eastern Ukrainians and providing economic incentives to voluntarily help them become bilingual and learn more about Ukrainian culture.
• Third, by offering key posts to pragmatic technocrats with strong roots and credibility in the East. Ukraine’s government must come to resemble the geographic makeup of the country.
The influence of a growing cohort of pragmatic business leaders and politicians interested in promoting national unity and democracy can be enhanced if the new government pursues a rigorous anti-corruption policy that rids the country of mendacious politicians.
Ukraine is on the verge of stability and consolidation. America and Europe must now do everything to ensure that the Orange Revolution’s second chance succeeds in shaping Ukraine into a modern democratic state.
Mr. Karatnycky, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council of the U.S., is president of the Orange Circle, a nongovernmental group working to build support for reform in Ukraine.