What’s Next For Ukraine’s Democracy?

After a runoff election plagued by fraud and a popular movement around opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, Ukrainians cast their ballots on Dec. 26 in what Tufts experts say was a promising step for democracy in Ukraine.

Medford/Somerville, Mass. [1.03.05] Following what many considered to be a fraudulent election in November, voters in the Ukraine demanded that the nation’s polls be reopened for a re-run of the country’s presidential election. Last month, they got their wish and elected reform candidate Viktor Yushchenko as president over Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. The historic election, say several Tufts experts, opens a new era for politics in the former Soviet republic.

“When the people realize they have the power to expose the deceit underlying a government prone to repression, it is the beginning of that regime's end,” Peter Ackerman – Fletcher School graduate and Tufts trustee – wrote in an op-ed published in The Boston Globe.

In the column – co-authored with Jack DuVall, who wrote the book A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict – Ackerman and DuVall examined how “an indigenous movement mobilized millions of alienated civilians, enticed timely defections, and became an irresistible emblem of the nation's future, making it natural for officials to formalize the people's will.”

In the wake of what was widely perceived as a corrupt election on Nov. 21, Ukrainians took to the streets – wearing orange clothing as a symbol of solidarity with Yushchenko’s campaign – and demanded a new vote. Public figures ranging from policemen to news broadcasters defected from the government’s party line and openly expressed agreement with Yushchenko’s movement, Ackerman and DuVall wrote.

“Enthusiasm is good, but a movement's success comes from the quality of its strategic moves,” Ackerman – who has chaired Fletcher’s Board of Overseers since 1996 – wrote in the Globe. “Ukrainian activists knew the regime would dodge and weave, hoping to exhaust resisters. Accordingly, the primary tactic was a long-term occupation of space surrounding government institutions.”

The outcry from both Ukrainians and international observers prompted the Ukraine’s parliament and Supreme Court to revisit the results amid numerous reports of election fraud.

“Without the massive civilian-based resistance dubbed the Orange Revolution, the Ukrainian Supreme Court would not have invalidated the fraud-ridden election of Nov. 21,” they wrote, applauding the organizers’ use of nonviolent protest tactics.

“It starts when people decide they want to be free,” Ackerman and DuVall wrote.

One important consequence of this freedom could be a substantial evolution of Ukraine’s ties to Russia. Yanukovych ran on a platform of strengthening Slavic bonds with Russia, while Yushchenko advocated greater connection to Western nations and the European Union.

Bruce Hitchner, chair of Tufts’ classics department and an expert in international relations, said that the vote helped Ukraine not only foster its relationship with Europe but begin to change its relationship with Russia.

“Up until the recent problems with the election, I think it's fair to say that Europe was disinterested in bringing Ukraine into the European Union anytime soon,” he told the Minnesota Public Radio program Marketplace. “This forced Ukraine to have to deal with Russia in a way that perhaps it did not always want to but was compelled to by disinterest, and that included massive Russian investment.”

In the wake of the election and shifting politics in Ukraine, more of that investment could come from abroad.

“Ukraine's level of investment with, for example, Europe and, to a lesser degree, the United States will only grow,” Hitchner said. “Ukraine is a very encouraging place to invest for any number of reasons.”

But Ukraine’s relationship with Russia may be forever altered.

“It has been in the Russians' interest, since the independence of Ukraine, to have a government in place that's favorable to it,” Hitchner told Marketplace. “Early on in the experience of Ukrainian independence, there was an awful lot of pressure on some of the early governments to exceed to Russian interests, and it forced the resignation early on of one of the Ukrainian prime ministers and a prosecution.”

Future interactions between Russia and Ukraine, however, will be much different, Hitchner said.

“The events of the last six months have made it much more difficult, if you will, for Russia to play the kind of political game it has played up to now. And I suspect, from now on, you will see an increasingly more transparent process.”