The entire Freedom House report can be found here.
A little more than a year ago, Freedom House released its first special report on Ukraine, Sounding the Alarm: Protecting Democracy in Ukraine. That report,[1] as the title suggested, warned that Ukraine was heading in the wrong direction on a number of fronts: consolidation of power in the executive branch at the expense of democratic development, a more restrictive environment for the media, selective prosecution of opposition figures, worrisome instances of intrusiveness by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), widely criticized local elections in October 2010, a pliant Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament), an erosion of basic freedoms of assembly and speech, and widening corruption. “Ukraine under President Yanukovych,” last year’s report warned, “has become less democratic and, if current trends are left unchecked, may head down a path toward autocracy and kleptocracy.”
A year later, most of those key concerns remain, and in some cases the problems have grown considerably worse, especially in the area of selective prosecution of opposition figures and corruption. The mayoral election in Obukhiv in March was widely criticized for its alleged rigging and fraud and bodes badly for the upcoming Verkhovna Rada elections. The term “familyization” was commonly used by interlocutors, implying that President Yanukovych’s family has not only benefitted personally from his presidency (see the section below on corruption) but is increasingly at the center of power and governance.
Freedom House’s ranking of Ukraine in its Freedom in the World 2012 report remained in the Partly Free category with a negative trend; the same assessment can be found in Freedom House’s just-released Nations in Transit. [2]
Against this backdrop, Freedom House, with support from the Open
Society Foundations’ Ukrainian arm, the International Renaissance
Foundation, undertook a follow-up special report on Ukraine and sent the
same American assessment team – David J. Kramer and two independent
analysts, Robert Nurick and Damon Wilson[3]
– back to Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Lviv this past April to have another look
at the situation. This year, two highly respected Ukrainian experts
joined in the assessment mission – Victoria Syumar and Olexander Sushko.
Their participation provided invaluable Ukrainian insight into
developments in their country and removed the sense that this year’s
report is simply an outsider’s look into Ukraine. During the mission,
the American-Ukrainian team met with a wide range of government
officials, Verkhovna Rada deputies, political opposition figures, civil
society actors, and journalists;[4] unlike last year, their meetings included President Yanukovych himself.
All members of the assessment team share a common commitment to
Ukraine’s success. We embrace the vision of an independent, sovereign
Ukraine with strong democratic institutions, a prosperous free market,
and consistent rule of law, embedded in Europe and a partner of the
United States as well as Russia. It is in the context of this vision for
Ukraine, a vision shared by government and opposition leaders alike,
that we offer this report and register our concerns. The trajectory of
policy and events in Ukraine today regrettably threatens to lead the
nation away from, rather than toward, this vision.
The assessment team concluded that, whereas most areas we considered in
last year’s report have worsened, as noted above and in this year’s
report, civil society appeared more animated and less dispirited this
year compared to last. The Verkhovna Rada elections scheduled for
October offer a critical test for the government to demonstrate its
commitment to democratic principles. The media situation is not as bleak
as the trajectory a year ago would have suggested, though still cause
for concern. Moreover, the government has supported useful legislation
and approaches dealing with the non-governmental (NGO) community, access
to information, and open government.
