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Political analyst Victor Chumak analyzes the pluses and minuses of the Jan. 17 presidential election. Every election after 2004 has been fateful in the literal sense. And with every election, the written and unwritten rules of Ukrainian democracy have continued to take shape. They become less tense, less dirt is dug up and placed on the heads of voters, and their conduct in ever more democratic settings is undoubtedly positive.

Positive aspects of the election campaign

The first plus is Ukraine has learned to conduct any election in a democratic manner and Ukrainians had the right to choose freely. Statements made by politicians of widespread election fraud went unsubstantiated and are made heard to justify their own defeats. Presently there are no mechanisms for committing widespread fraud and there is harsh political competition between political forces that are represented in the election commissions. This has curtailed election results falsification.

However, only voting in the second round can confirm this belief. Parliament won’t be able to make the necessary amendments to the election law and remove some of the rules and regulations that could lead to fraud. Specifically, homebound voting and adding voters to voter lists on election day.

A second positive is the emergence of politicians capable of actually competing in Ukraine’s political arena as a “third force” and the public’s reciprocal demand for new faces.

First and foremost, here I mean Serhiy Tigipko and Arseniy Yatseniuk. Between them, they received slightly more than 20 percent of the vote. This shows that society, in search of a “third” candidate, saw politicians who spoke about the substance of politics and not only about form and image.

If it wasn’t for Yatseniuk’s mistakes in the way he positioned himself in the pre-election campaign, and conducting such an assaultive advertising campaign (which had nothing to do with its intrinsic meaning), he could’ve had higher results.

In any case, these two candidates should focus on building up their parties and be actively present in the political mass media in the near future. Their real ability to form effective political teams will be put to the test during the May elections to local councils and/or in a possible pre-term parliamentary election. Only after these elections can we begin to start speaking in certain terms about the emergence of the “third force” in Ukrainian politics.

A third plus of this campaign is the defeat, and in essence, a fiasco – politicians of the first wave of Ukrainian independence from the left and right of the ideological front – those who have for more than 10 years made up Ukrainian politics. Now Volodymyr Lytvyn knows for certain by what percentage of Ukrainians “he is wanted”. Petro Symonenko can take pleasure in the fact that his level of support in the country depends on the gerontological components of society. And Oleksandr Moroz will for a long time blame his careless step in forming a parliamentary coalition with the Party of Regions in 2006. Liudmyla Suprun, Yuriy Kostenko and Mykhailo Brodsky as politicians have entombed their once rather good political projects. Regarding Brodsky, for him this is quite vexing because there isn’t one Ukrainian political party remaining that even on a declarative level promotes liberal ideas.

Arriving at a conclusion, an evolutionary rotation of the elite is underway in Ukraine albeit sluggishly.

A sure positive is the fall in the number of dummy and spoiler presidential candidates in comparison to the 2004 presidential election.

On the one hand this ploy has become more expensive since the deposit amount to enter one’s candidacy is higher. On the other hand their role is less needed by candidates: they don’t need to throw dirt around or spread lies about their opponents or stop at nothing to gain an advantage in election commissions.

Negative aspects of the campaign

Firstly, Ukrainian voters still haven’t learned to vote with their minds. With their hearts, stomachs, anything else except with their minds. Society continues being in a perpetual state of social schizophrenia. And populism remains the main election campaign method, which means: the desire of the average voter to want “everything and now” is key. Cursing for all what the oligarchy is worth while talking about the two leading politicians as representatives of “evil” for Ukraine they stubbornly in the first voted for this “evil” so that in the second round they could pick the lesser “evil”. How much simpler would the choice be had someone like Tigipko or Yateseniuk made it into the second round. Then they would’ve chosen the best one and not vote against the worst candidate. If society doesn’t learn at all to make a choice “between the two evils”, then the Ukrainian proverb of “being stupid because you’re poor, and poor because you’re stupid” will be a vital question for a very long time.

Second, financial resources determine the outcome of an election campaign. And inasmuch as the people aren’t ready to vote for an idea given that it is they who through party membership fees, government financing and campaign donations should finance their politicians and political parties, this means the unchallenged influence of big capital on campaigns, election outcomes and, accordingly, state policy.

It is exactly money and government resources that determined the amount of exposure candidates got in the mass media. The candidates that spent the most ended up in first place. The public is incapable of controlling campaign financing, and even better – to control and limit financing of pre-election campaign funds. At the same time, the use of government financing and resources during the conduct of election campaigns of candidates in government has increased.

The election campaign has again showed that these kinds of candidates irrespective of their party affiliation require the strict and severe control over the use of public resources for their private political interests. Currently there are no counter measures available. Anatoliy Hrytsenko’s attempt to conduct a campaign supported solely by voter donations was a positive outcome in the sense that he was to first to try. However, he didn’t raise enough money.

Thirdly, whoever of the two remaining candidates becomes president of Ukraine will have to acknowledge to real state of affairs in the country. And the true state of affairs is systemic political, legal and socio-economic crises. Ineffective state and social institutions are leading the country into a collapse. And cosmetic patching up of legislative gaps or continued social populism won’t end these crises. The only way out is deep comprehensive reforms in all norms of social life. Constitutional, administrative and judicial reform in law enforcement, local government, and anti-corruption – these are the reforms that if left undone put Ukrainian statehood under threat. The absence of reforms in education, medicine, housing and municipal services threatens the actual lives of Ukrainians. The trouble is that these reforms require harsh and unpopular measures, about which the candidates said nothing to voters and weren’t part of their election programs. Will the candidates have enough will, strength and courage to understand that they are “temporary”, but their actions may be remembered forever? Will they have the fortitude to launch reforms realizing that the outcome of their efforts will only be seen only when they’re in political retirement?

Viktor Chumak, senior analyst at the International Center for Policy Studies. This article first appeared in Ukrainska Pravda on Jan. 19, 2010. Translated from the Ukrainian by Mark Rachkevych.