openDemocracy: Reconstructing the power vertical: the authoritarian threat in Ukraine

The hopes inspired by the first peaceful protests in Kiev were connected with the idea that authoritarian trends in Ukrainian politics could be stopped, that Ukraine could move towards European integration, and that there could be a return to political and economic pluralism in Ukraine and elsewhere in the region. However, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the subsequent invasion of eastern Ukraine, combined with the rise in extreme forces on the Maidan and perception of western support in ousting former president Viktor Yanukovych, meant that EuroMaidan’s liberal agenda has faced an uphill battle. [...]

2016 was a critical year for Ukraine’s development. EuroMaidan’s democratic potential was finally exhausted and its civil revolution finally ended. Rather than a flourishing democracy and civil society, 2016 brought the non-democratic and non-legal consolidation of power by and around the president. [...]

By law, the president controls the security services, army, diplomacy and prosecutor's office. Poroshenko has chosen to appoint loyal people to these institutions, regardless of their skill or experience. An extreme example of this is Yuri Lutsenko who was appointed general prosecutor in May 2016 despite having no legal background. The president went to extreme lengths to get a majority of deputies in parliament first to change the legal requirements for the job and then to vote for his ally. [...]

Ukraine’s judiciary cannot be considered an independent branch of government. Little has changed since the mid-1990s: the judiciary remains an integral part to the power base of Ukraine’s leading clans — currently, Poroshenko’s. As a result, public trust in Ukrainian courts is at an all-time low. Shortly after EuroMaidan, the judiciary became one of the first targets of lustration. However, attempts to lustrate corrupt judges have failed miserably, as there are legitimate concerns about the competence and independence of those involved in lustration efforts. Indeed, lustration has had rather unexpected consequences: the judiciary has become even more obedient to the ruling clans who saved them from civil society pressure. [...]

But this assessment seems to have been unrealistically positive. Media independence is actually in decline. In 2016, Ukraine witnessed a number of attacks on major TV channels that constitute the major source of information about politics for Ukrainians. This trend started in May 2016 with the leak of foreign journalists’ personal information by nationalist cyber-activists. Several weeks later, the highly respected journalist Pavel Sheremet was murdered.

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College of Europe: The risky game of Yulia Tymoshenko

Two years after Maidan the post-revolutionary consensus in Ukrainian politics has all but vanished. While Petro Poroshenko and his bloc still hold a firm grip on power, this year the President has had to face a government crisis and increasingly declining approval rates [1]. In this scenario, Yulia Tymoshenko and her party Batkivshchyna are strengthening their position by channeling popular frustration against institutions – and so far their efforts are paying off [2]. However, if Tymoshenko were to win next elections her inability to deliver on her promises risks undermining the public’s trust in the credibility of the political class and in the feasibility of reforms even further. [...]

Yulia Tymoshenko is a political heavyweight – a household name for Ukrainians and foreigners with top government experience. Yet, what foreigners may fail to appreciate is how controversial her political figure is among her compatriots. Together with Yushchenko, she was the face of the Orange Revolution in 2004, but she was also responsible for the ensuing failure to strengthen the reform process. Her detention between 2011 and 2014 had a major impact in spoiling relations between Yanukovich and the West, but Maidan developed independently from her and from political parties. To most Ukrainians Tymoshenko merely represents the old system that failed to implement reforms and to prevent the rise of Yanukovich. After Maidan, she was even abandoned by former party allies, such as Yatsenyuk, who did not want to continue to act in her shadow and left Batkivshchyna to create the People’s Front. [...]

All the same, Batkivshchyna seems focused on playing its game: populist rhetoric in exchange for immediate electoral benefits. However, this strategy has evident drawbacks. Firstly, making proposals that cannot be delivered once in power is a dangerous practice in a country which already has a low regard of politicians. Secondly, the party’s attention to gas prices suggests that Tymoshenko is more focused on attacking unpopular yet necessary reforms in order to gain the sympathies of pensioners – a key electoral constituency – than addressing the actual shortcomings of the reform process. Therefore, an electoral victory of Batkivshchyna would not represent a real change but would probably coincide with another season of popular disillusion in Ukrainian politicians and in their ability to live up to their promises of reform.

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