Much has been written on whether the European Union and Ukraine will sign agreements on association, free trade and, just as important if not more so for average Ukrainians, visa liberalization. Lots of analysis also has zeroed in on how Russian President Vladimir Putin and his minions have approached the Ukraine-EU relationship, using threats and pressure that have done more to alienate Ukrainians from Russia and unite Ukrainians in moving toward Europe. Less attention, by comparison, is being devoted to the event that will take place long after next month’s Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius—namely, the 2015 Ukrainian presidential election.
In the first set of analysis, the focus has been on whether Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych will pardon or grant amnesty to former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whom Yanukovych defeated in a close but free and fair election in 2010, or leave her in jail. The European Union has made clear that Yanukovych’s failure to free Tymoshenko will scuttle any deals in Vilnius. Still haunted by Tymoshenko’s role in the Orange Revolution events of 2004, Yanukovych ever since his electoral victory in 2010 has sought to prevent Tymoshenko from posing a political challenge to him again.
His friends in the prosecutor’s office have complied by carrying out a politically-motivated legal campaign against Tymoshenko with a series of investigations into her alleged criminal acts, with the latest being spurious allegations of her involvement in the murder of a Ukrainian legislator back in the mid-1990s. Like his predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, Yanukovych has had an unhealthy and counterproductive obsession with Tymoshenko in which he sees her as his main threat—to the point that keeping her in prison may well wind up ruining his country’s chances to deepen its integration with Europe.
Tymoshenko’s prosecution and imprisonment, criticized widely in the West, exemplify Yanukovych’s use of selective justice against his political opponents and the corruption of the legal system. His willingness to play a game of chicken with the European Union—hoping it will back down on its demand that she be freed as a precondition for signing the agreements at next month’s Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius, because Ukraine is “too important” to leave to Russia’s sphere of influence—reflects his determination to place his political fortunes above the interests of his country. The European Union is right to demand a satisfactory solution to the Tymoshenko problem.
The latest draft legislation before the Ukrainian parliament, wherein Tymoshenko would be allowed to go to Germany for medical treatment of her debilitating back condition but would have to resume her jail service upon her return to Ukraine, is simply not good enough. This would essentially force Tymoshenko to stay in Germany in exile, something to which she won’t and shouldn’t agree. Yanukovych has until November 18, when EU Foreign Ministers next meet, to fix the Tymoshenko problem and secure Ukraine’s relationship with the European Union. Should he fail, he will do serious damage to his country’s future and leave himself vulnerable to Putin’s whims.
Beyond the Tymoshenko situation, much has also been written on Putin’s ham-fisted approach to Ukraine, and my colleagues Andrew Wood and Lilia Shevtsova offer insightful takes on this issue. Putin’s policy toward Russia’s neighbors would suffer a huge blow if its threats and pressure to discourage Ukraine (and Moldova and Georgia, for that matter) from reaching agreement with the European Union fail. Ukraine-EU accord will be the death knell of the ill-fated Eurasian Economic Union, for without Ukraine, Putin’s latest initiative to reintegrate the states in the region will collapse. From a Western perspective, this argues in favor of striking an agreement between the European Union and Ukraine at Vilnius, though the Tymoshenko problem is the major hindrance.
But amid all the understandable focus on Tymoshenko’s fate, the EU agreements and how this will reverberate in Russia, little attention has been paid to the 2015 Ukrainian presidential election. Until, that is, Vitali Klitschko’s announcement last Thursday (October 24) that he plans to run for President. Anticipating such a development, the pro-Yanukovych Rada (Ukrainian parliament) is playing political games with the election rules by calling for a ban on candidates who have legal residency in another country. Klitschko, who has lived before in Germany for training during his highly successful boxing career, is the clear target of such legislation.
Last year’s parliamentary elections were a serious setback for Ukraine after a series of national elections since December 2004 that had been deemed credible and fair. Concern is mounting that the 2015 presidential race will be even worse than last year’s legislative race. After all, as Yanukovych has shown with his handling of Tymoshenko, he is hell-bent on staying in power no matter the costs and will deal with perceived threats in any way he deems necessary, even at the potential cost of improved relations with the European Union. “Family-ization”, the term used in Ukrainian circles for the past year or so to describe alleged corruption by the first family, means that Yanukovych cannot afford to surrender power, for if he were to lose the next election, he and his sons could face prosecution and a similar fate as that which befell Tymoshenko.
His problem, however, is that his level of public support—in the 20s—is quite low and thus would require manipulation of the election on such a scale that it could produce a nasty backlash. One step he is contemplating is to eliminate two rounds in the election if no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote. If there are several opposition candidates, they could split the vote among themselves and leave Yanukovych in the lead spot. Thus, any efforts to eliminate the second round would be done solely for Yanukovych’s benefit and should be viewed negatively.
At the same time that EU officials press for resolution of the Tymoshenko case to pave the way for signing agreements at the Vilnius summit, they also need to make clear to Kyiv that they are already thinking ahead to the 2015 campaign and election. The United States, which has largely been marginalized the past few months as attention has focused on the European Union, needs to issue its own warnings about the elections. Yanukovych needs to be put on notice now that the lead-up to and conduct of the 2015 election will determine Ukraine’s future with the West, just as Tymoshenko’s fate will influence the signing of the agreements at Vilnius. Waiting until the end of 2014 to convey to Yanukovych that the world is watching those elections will be too late. The ministerial meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which Ukraine will host in December and which Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to attend, will be an important opportunity to drive home the message on the 2015 elections.
Indeed, Western states need to make clear that to deepen integration with Euro-Atlantic institutions, Ukraine needs not only to solve the Tymoshenko problem; it must also hold a credible and fair election in 2015—and the clock has already started on the latter. Yanukovych’s level of support is low compared to his neighbor to the north, and recent surveys show he could easily lose in a second round to various opposition candidates. Such poll numbers will make Yanukovych even more desperate to stave off defeat. How he tries to do so over the next year or so should be as important as the decision he makes on Yulia Tymoshenko’s future within the next few weeks.
