Five years later, Yushchenko scored a dismal fifth place with less than six percent of the vote. His erstwhile ally and now bitter rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, came in second with 25 percent. Meanwhile, the loser of the Orange Revolution, Victor Yanukovych, came in first with 35 percent and will face Tymoshenko in a run-off on Feb. 7.
That Tymoshenko garnered even 25 percent of the vote during Ukraine’s deep economic crisis is a testament to her political skill and charisma. But she and Yanukovych will now be competing for the more than 30 percent of the votes that went to other candidates, and most of those votes are on Yanukovich’s turf in eastern Ukraine. It is likely to be a very close race.
The prospect of Yanukovych winning Ukraine’s presidency has prompted fears for Ukrainian democracy. After all, in 2004, the Oranges were the democrats, while the Kremlin-backed Yanukovych was the hand-picked successor to the authoritarian and corrupt Leonid Kuchma. But so much has changed over the last five years that a Yanukovych win may, ironically, be better for Ukrainian democracy.
Now, I have been a fan of Tymoshenko since I first interviewed her in 1997. In fact, I had a full-blown political crush on her. She was attractive, gracious, funny and incredibly smart. She was also real. I’m not sure what changed, but it started with the fake braid, followed by the increasingly elaborate and hideously expensive outfits. She’s more like an icon than a person. Even people in her own party don’t know what she believes in.
Indeed, if there’s anything that nearly everyone does agree on is that Tymoshenko has a visceral drive for power and she has proven fully capable of abandoning democracy to get it. For years, she has been likened to nuclear energy, which can be used for destructive bombs or useful electricity. The difference is that the force must be contained to be useful and in Ukrainian politics, that containment would be a strong opposition and a working political system. Both were in place when she was deputy premier from 1999-2001 and single-handedly overhauled the energy sector. But neither is likely in the foreseeable future. That’s why her presidency could be dangerous.
Ukraine divides executive powers between the president and the prime minister.
A constitutional amendment adopted during the Orange Revolution took the power to appoint the premier from the president and gave it to the parliament. Theoretically, the purpose was to strengthen the legislative branch. Given a strong prime minister with a working majority, it might have. But Ukraine’s parliament has been paralyzed for years and two rounds of elections haven’t changed that.
Nevertheless, the presidential post still has a good deal of heft and a leader with a better understanding of power than Yushchenko could have exploited the legislature’s paralysis to strengthen his own position. Whether he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, is theoretical at this point. The next Ukrainian president will be taking office with a parliament that has thus far proven unable to form a reliable, working majority.
Now, what happens if Tymoshenko wins? First, she would have to resign as prime minister and the parliament – where Yanukovich would return to lead the opposition — would have to elect a new government. It’s entirely possible that a President Tymoshenko would be able to cobble a coalition together out of the parliament’s Orange fragments and get a prime minister of her choosing. Some might argue that that would be good, because she could then push forward with her agenda.
But the only Tymoshenko agenda that anyone has been able to discern is getting more power. A strong opposition could contain that drive and direct it to more useful endeavors. But Yanukovych has had five years to demonstrate only lackluster opposition skills. It’s also entirely possible that parliament won’t be able to elect a prime minister for some time, leaving a President Tymoshenko untrammeled in consolidating the powers that Yushchenko either didn’t want or couldn’t effectively wield. There would be little to stop her from usurping more — especially with the Machiavellian Kuchma veterans she now has on her team.
But an entirely different picture emerges if Yanukovich wins. First of all, Tymoshenko would remain the prime minister. Granted, the coalition supporting her is rickety at best and Yanukovych’s party could probably poach enough of its members for a no-confidence vote. But Tymoshenko is a skilled opposition leader, and the Orange tatters in parliament would coalesce around her to form a strong counterweight to Yanukovich, positioning her for the premiership again after the next parliamentary elections.
Either way, as opposition leader or premier, Tymoshenko wouldn’t need containment. She would become it. And that would be very good for Ukrainian democracy.
Mary Mycio is a lawyer and author of Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl. She lived in Ukraine from 1991 to 2007, reporting for the Los Angeles Times and other publications.
