While there was an increasingly successful move toward one-party rule from 1999 to 2004, there was no entrenched system to rebel against. Rather the election fraud in 2004 represented an attempt to replace Ukraine’s corrupt and flawed democracy with a corrupt authoritarianism. All of those who foiled this plan, including the officials who defected from Kuchma’s team, the oligarchs who funded the opposition, and the people who spilled into the streets of Kiev, shared an opposition to ending pluralism in Ukraine, whether for selfish or idealistic reasons. Many of them had additional goals as well, including aligning Ukraine with the West, redistributing property, punishing corrupt officials, and ending the petty corruption that creates so much daily hassle. But there was little agreement on a specific agenda.

The solution to the standoff of December 2004 was also conservative, rather than revolutionary, in nature. It preserved the status quo, rather than overthrowing it. It was reached by compromise within the existing constitutional framework. Some, such as Yuliya Tymoshenko, sought a more revolutionary change by using protesters in the streets to seize power, just as had been done in Georgia the previous year. But others rejected that course, and she acquiesced. The agreement reached to rerun the second round of the election contained a widely-supported compromise to further reduce the power of the presidency relative to the prime minister and parliament. This change was enacted over the objections of the supposed revolutionary, Viktor Yushchenko.

The Revolving Door

Between 2004 and the present, pluralism has continued to survive, occasionally narrowly, despite renewed attempts by Yanukovych to seize hegemonic control and attempts by Tymoshenko to crush Yanukovych and his allies. Indeed, this has probably been Viktor Yushchenko’s greatest success. Though frustrating supporters who wanted him to prosecute his opponents and attack their economic interests, he has continuously supported compromise while the other two main figures seem prepared to play all-or-nothing politics.

Part of the reason for continued pluralism has been the fragmentation of reformist forces. It is rarely recognized, but important to understanding Ukrainian politics, that reformist forces have almost always fragmented. For example, an agreement among anti-Kuchma forces to unite behind a single presidential candidate in 1999 collapsed before the election. In 2001 and 2002, Viktor Yushchenko refused to join the same coalition that succeeded in 2004, instead voicing mistrust of protest and loyalty to Kuchma. Their alliance in 2004 was exceptional, tactical rather than principled, and forged only by impending disaster. It fragmented almost immediately after the threat waned, and was formed again only in 2007 when disaster was again imminent. It remains to be seen whether this new alliance will last.

As a result of Yushchenko’s hedging between allying with Tymoshenko or Yanukovych, supporters of the “Orange Revolution” were demoralized, and Viktor Yanukovych, seen as politically dead in 2004, was rehabilitated and selected prime minister. From early 2005 until autumn of that year, Yushchenko was president and Tymoshenko prime minister. Their teams not only failed to agree on basic policy questions, but were basically hostile to one another. Tymoshenko, along with many of Yushchenko’s supporters, criticized Yushchenko for not pursuing criminal charges concerning the 2004 elections, and for not reprivatizing firms that had been corruptly purchased by allies of Kuchma. Yushchenko did not want to fight these battles. It is not clear to what extent he was driven by a spirit of reconciliation, or to what extent he sought to maintain the Party of Regions as a counterweight to Tymoshenko. Either way, he fired her in late 2005. Following the 2006 parliamentary elections Yushchenko rejected a duumvirate led by himself and Tymoshenko, perhaps because he feared alienating the eastern part of the country, perhaps because he feared what Tymoshenko might have in store next. Instead, he formed a “grand coalition” with his supposed arch-enemy, the Party of Regions, leaving Tymoshenko’s bloc isolated. Pluralism had triumphed over Tymoshenko’s desire to punish the Yanukovych camp for its transgressions and her desire to permanently weaken it as a political force.

Given a new lease on life, Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions did not hesitate to pursue political dominance once again. Within the government, Yanukovych worked to undermine those ministers that were appointed by the president (constitutional changes agreed to in 2004 gave the prime minister control over appointing most ministers, while the president retained control over the “power ministries.”) In parliament, he coerced and bribed deputies, and ignored the newly adopted “imperative mandate” rules, in an effort to gain a two-thirds majority, which would allow him to change the constitution. His methods were especially successful in picking off members of Tymoshenko’s bloc, which had been excluded from power. In early 2007, he was able to pass the Law on the Cabinet of Ministers, which strengthened the prime minister’s control at the expense of the president.

When the prospect of a decisive “tipping” of power in Ukrainian politics emerged again, confrontation returned. The Law on the Cabinet of Ministers, and the prospect that Yanukovych would amass the 300 votes in Parliament needed to amend the constitution, raised the possibility that Yanukovych and the Party of Regions would take over the system. Yushchenko responded by calling for new parliamentary elections. As with the 1994 presidential elections, the constitutional basis for these elections was dubious, but Yanukovych agreed, believing that his party’s majority would be strengthened. As it turned out, neither Yanukovych nor Yushchenko, but Tymoshenko gained most from the 2007 election. After several months of bargaining, Tymoshenko returned as prime minister in December. What stands out, however, is that while some actors were willing to break or bend the rules to gain predominance in the system, others were equally willing to bend the rules to stop them. In other words, Ukrainian politics has been characterized by the kind of balance of power politics traditionally seen in international politics, relatively unconstrained by rules and institutions.

Regional Division

Throughout Ukraine’s independence period, regional politics have been both a blessing and a curse. These divisions make it difficult for would-be authoritarians such as Kuchma and Yanukovych to take over the system, but equally difficult for any other force, whether pro-western, democratic, or liberal, to dominate. Moreover, these divisions have made it difficult to get beyond basic questions of “who will rule” to actually governing the country. Related to the regional division is a clan-based economic system. Economic oligarchy in Ukraine has proven resistant to further consolidation into a single dominant group linked with the government, as has happened elsewhere in the region. Perhaps the crucial source of the 2004 restoration was the decision by several key oligarchs to defect from the Kuchma/Yanukovych camp, and the fact that they could do so without automatically forfeiting their business interests.