Just over a year since Viktor Yanukovych became president, he stands accused of all sorts of unpleasant things, with hundreds of articles and newspaper columns being penned by Ukraine experts and others offering a one-year report card.
Some have compared media freedoms in Ukraine to China and Iraq, while others have demanded the international community place sanctions on Yanukovych, comparing him to the Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko on whom the European Union recently slapped a travel ban.
Not surprisingly Yanukovych and his team tell a different story.They continue to claim that the West is being tricked by opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and the government is the victim of a very successful public relations campaign.
They say they are guilty of nothing more than putting Ukraine back on a solid footing and in order to do this they had to consolidate power. As a result of this consolidation, difficult reforms are being tackled in many different areas.
The question Yanukovych needs to ask himself is whether he wants to help Ukraine transform into a modern European state which strongly desires to be part of the EU, as he himself has said on many occasions, or whether he wants to be labeled as the man guilty of returning the country to a Soviet style of leadership
At the same time Ukraine’s leadership achieved a more balanced and harmonious foreign policy including strengthening relations with both the European Union and the United States and moving to a more normal relationship – albeit not overly warm – with the Kremlin.
They also claim that serious steps to tackle Ukraine’s epidemic corruption are being made, whether this is at the highest political level or a lowly traffic cop – although the process seems to be obsessed with Tymoshenko.
Looking at progress, it is clear that reforms have taken place; many more than were made under the previous government. Improvements in economic policy and performance are undeniable.
There have been improvements in the gross domestic product and the renewed cooperation with the International Monetary Fund demonstrates a higher level of fiscal responsibility. Ukraine is now stable and seems likely to remain that way.
However, stability is not everything. Implementation of many reforms remains rather patchy; to be credible reforms cannot simply exist on paper. Considerable problems with the judicial system also remain, which continues to suffer from external political influence with not much changing since the Soviet days.
However, this was pretty much the same in the days prior to Yanukovych’s entry to office. Furthermore a more inclusive approach on several sensitive and controversial issues, such as tax reform, the Black Sea Fleet, the cancelling of constitutional reforms, would have been a wiser policy.
While there has been considerable concern over a reported deterioration in the state of media freedoms – one of the few achievements of the 2004 Orange Revolution years – for the time being there still seems to be reasonably balanced coverage with lively political debates with television shows continuing to take place for hours at a time.
For Ukraine it seems unthinkable that a population which stood in the freezing cold a mere five years ago will now just stand back and allow democracy and freedoms to slip away.
There are also regular street protests, demonstrating that the right to assembly remains strong and is not restricted by the government. Civil society, while still quite young, continues to function actively.
The new law on access to public information gives reporters and citizens alike much broader rights to information about what the government is up to, although once again it needs to be properly implemented. However, it is crucial that standards are not allowed to slip, so close monitoring of the situation remains imperative.
Overall, 2010 turned into something of a contentious year for the president; a year that has polarized Ukraine and increasingly the West into two camps — those who see his leadership as the beginning of the end for democracy in Ukraine and those who are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and wait and see what the next six months or so brings.
Indeed, some in the latter group seem more interested in maintaining stability than whether or not Ukraine maintains high levels of democracy. Nobody apart from the president himself knows what his true intentions are, or to what degree those around him are able to cajole him into certain things.
Yanukovych came to power well aware that he was viewed as a controversial character. In light of this he has always given the impression that he wants to shake off this image and be seen as a credible and reliable leader and partner both at home and abroad.
He almost certainly does not want to be seen as the man that destroyed democracy in Ukraine and returned it to the Leonid Kuchma era (president from 1994-2005) – or worse. However, so far he has not achieved this.
Furthermore, if Yanukovych had the intention to create an autocratic, centralized system of power, giving oligarchs preferential treatment, he could not have picked a worse time.
Events in the Arab world clearly demonstrate that it’s a precarious time to be an autocratic leader, so for Yanukovych to wish to turn himself into one would be irrational.
These days no such leader is safe, whether in the Arab world or elsewhere. The fear of being faced with burly security forces is no longer enough to keep people silent. Modern technology such as Facebook and Twitter are creating societies which leave no leader untouchable.
Strongmen leaders will have to open their minds to the fact that they will either have to change the way they do things or they will be brought down by people power, sooner rather than later.
Therefore, for Ukraine it seems unthinkable that a population which stood in the freezing cold a mere five years ago will now just stand back and allow democracy and freedoms to slip away.
Furthermore, while comparisons to Belarus are absurd – Ukraine remains in a totally different league and is still much freer than Russia – international fears should be dealt with.
Yanukovych should use 2011 to meet concerns over the perceived negative trends in the country. A good start would be to tackling Ukraine’s pandemic corruption in a way that reduces concerns about politically motivated persecution and start to make some strides in reforming the criminal justice system.
Demonstrating a zero-tolerance approach to torture and human rights violations – including by security forces, a regular occurrence both inside and outside the prison system – would also be a positive.
A deep and intensive reform program needs to be continued and carried out in an inclusive way, with reforms being fully implemented. And lastly the development of a new constitution also needs to include all elements of Ukraine’s political life and society without exception.
The question Yanukovych needs to ask himself is whether he wants to help Ukraine transform into a modern European state which strongly desires to be part of the EU, as he himself has said on many occasions, or whether he wants to be labeled as the man guilty of returning the country to a Soviet style of leadership.
He has nothing to gain from the second scenario but plenty from the first.
Amanda Paul is a policy analyst at the European Policy Center, a Brussels-based think tank. She can be reached at [email protected].
