This month, the world celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with numerous reflections on the event’s significance for Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The fall of the wall brought changes unimaginable in the 1980s – private property, Western consumer goods, travel abroad, and the freedom to voice opinions. But 20 years on, nostalgia for communism remains.
Certain countries have been winners in the reform process, with progress across all basic human development and economic indicators, while others have taken a more tenuous path, with successes few and far between. Unfortunately, Ukraine is in the latter group.
The Pew Global Attitudes Project survey released earlier this month reveals Ukrainians’ troubling views on democracy and a market economy, compared with their own expectations in 1991 and with the views of their neighbors today.
Out of all the countries in Central and Eastern Europe and some from the former Soviet Union, Ukraine has the highest proportion of the population – 47 percent – that disapproves of the transition from a state-controlled to a market economy. A surprising 55 percent disapprove of the change to a multi-party democracy, also the largest percentage.
At 69 percent, Ukraine has the highest proportion of the population ready to put its faith in a strong leader rather than democratic institutions. In fact, since 1991, Ukrainians’ preference for democracy has declined by 37 percent – an even higher rate than among Russians, who stand at 22 percent.
Looking at Ukraine’s politics and economy, it is clear why its citizens are so disappointed. Neither democracy nor the market economy has delivered. There have been many promises, but little implementation; much noise, but little follow-through.
Plans to end corruption have not yielded results, and as ordinary citizens, entrepreneurs, and even public officials will attest, corruption has actually been on the rise. Business-oriented reforms have stalled. Failures to improve tax policy and licensing procedures have put Ukraine near the bottom of the World Bank’s business rankings. Although the Orange Revolution has fostered political competition, much of Ukraine’s politics is still based on personality, rather than concrete platforms.
Nonetheless, the situation is far from hopeless. Ukraine has several things it can build upon, including a free media and a vibrant civil society. To continue moving forward, Ukraine must start to learn from its neighbors in Central and Eastern Europe, who have been more successful in making democracy work.
For Ukraine, the main lesson of the past 20 years of transition in Europe is that political leaders must be ready to implement necessary reforms even if such reforms may seem politically unpopular. Ukraine will benefit from leaders who put policy ahead of politics. It will benefit from a leadership that takes the necessary steps to implement fundamental reforms the country needs, even if those reforms may prove unpopular in the short run. To accomplish this, these leaders will need to risk political capital and their reelection chances on real change, rather than make populist promises.
As Eastern and Central Europe demonstrate, popularity must sometimes be sacrificed at the altar of change. The best example of this is Leszek Balcerowicz, Poland’s former Minister of Finance, who pushed through the very unpopular “Balcerowicz Plan” in late 1989, also known as “shock therapy” for the rapid speed of the economy’s transition from communism to capitalism.The plan ultimately made Poland one of the success stories of transition.
Reflecting on his experience, Balcerowicz said in a television interview: “I knew that one has to accept in advance some unpopularity as a price for solving the country’s problems, of putting a country on a better path.” In a similar vein, Ivan Miklos, who led Slovakia after the disastrous policies of the authoritarian Meciar government to become one of the best economies in Europe, once noted: “What always mattered for me was the strong conviction that what we were doing was good for my country.”
Both Balcerowicz and Miklos, as well as many others in Central and Eastern Europe, understood that important reforms cannot be put off for short-term electoral politics, because the long-term effects of delaying are devastating. They realized that democracy is not a popularity contest – it requires concrete, necessary steps to implement real reforms.
Certainly, successful reform is not solely the responsibility of the political leadership. Civil society and the business community must contribute solutions, not just criticism. Ukrainian reformers and political leaders should take advantage of the opportunity to develop a path to lasting transitions based on the experiences of their successful Eastern European neighbors.
Marc Schleifer is program officer for Eurasia and Aleksandr Shkolnikov is director for policy reform at the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) in Washington D.C.
