Ukraine heads into crisis…again
President Viktor Yushchenko’s decision to dissolve parliament and set new elections for May 27 now faces a challenge in the constitutional court. Even if the president’s decree is upheld, reformist forces will still face an uphill task in convincing voters to give them a mandate to form a government in light of the farcical manner in which they conducted themselves following the Orange Revolution of 2004.
The consequences for the reformists if the constitutional court does not back the president, however, may be even worse. Supporters of Prime Minister Yanukovich are already talking about impeaching the president whose authority will be drasticaly diminished if the court goes against him.
It is not clear at this stage what the court will do. Cynics, who point to Ukraine’s appalling corruption problems, are already arguing that some constitutional court officials are forcing the two sides into a bidding war. He who pays (literally pays) the highest price will get the verdict. Events are moving very rapidly and it is not possible to say how things will move at this stage. One analyst based in the UK — Andrew Wilson, a senior lecturer in Ukrainian studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London — was quoted in the Guardian as saying his understanding is that the majority of the 18 member court probably backs Yanukovich. This remains to be seen.
But make no mistake about it, this is the biggest crisis in Ukraine since the Orange revolution. Ukraine is the largest and most important “space” up for competition between Russian neo-authoritarianism and pro-western reformism. There has even been talk in some quarters about the country splitting into two distinct entities — a Russian dominated east and south and a Ukrainian speaking centre and west. There is a long way to go before anything like that happens in Ukraine. But the stakes in this crisis are high indeed.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Ukrainian democracy has a long way to go.