January 26th 2012,

It has been a year since the revolution in Egypt. Russia Today’s treatment of the anniversary has been rather telling.

In a piece provided top billing yesterday, the Kremlin’s international mouthpiece noted that, among hundreds of thousands celebrating the anniversary of the beginning of the uprising in Cairo, many (perhaps the majority of) people are still demonstrating as part of an ongoing struggle to entrench the revolution by reducing the influence of the army on the Egyptian political system.

The tone of the report is markedly different from the way the channel greeted the first days of the revolt a year ago. Back then, it implausibly claimed that (then recently released) Wikileaks cables “revealed” that the US had been plotting to overthrow Mubarak for “at least three years” and that they, ”show Washington had been secretly backing leading figures behind the uprising.”

At the time, Democratist noted that the Wikileaks documents did not in fact reveal anything of the kind, and suggested that the RT’s wholly invented position was chiefly inspired by the nomenklatura’s concerns about the ramifications of the Arab Spring for its own domestic position;

“from the perspective of the nomenklatura, any major popular democratic uprising has to be presented to the Russian people (and by extension the world at large) as part of an “American plot”, because what has to be avoided at all costs is the idea that people might actually be able to think for themselves. As long as it’s all the CIA’s fault, that’s OK. But if people in other countries can overthrow oppressive regimes, then the Russians might slowly wake up to the idea that they might one day do the same thing – and that would never do.”

And so now we find ourselves a year on. RT’s talk of direct CIA involvement in the revolutions has waned. Indeed, if anything it has become mildly supportive of the Egyptian protests, seeing them as part of the inspiration for the Occupy Wall Street movement (which the channel has also been attempting to leverage to the Kremlin’s advantage through its coverage and support in the US – hoping that it might eventually have some influence on the broader political scene and foreign policy).

Additionally, while RT could just about defend the argument that the Americans were behind the revolution for a few months, the very fact that millions of Egyptians are still prepared to come out onto the streets a year after the initial uprising gives the lie to the suggestion that what has happened in Egypt and the wider middle East was directed from Washington/lacked popular support: Surely not even the most credulous of RT’s viewers are now prepared to accept that the US was able to organize, on its own, uprisings of millions of people in five or six countries simulaneously, and for a period which has (so far) lasted for more than a year?

Instead RT’s propaganda model is adapting to the new circumstances, and the original position is being replaced with a new and more convoluted conspiracy theory, which sees “the West” backing Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who are in turn using money and influence to hijack the popular grievances (now accepted as genuine, at least in terms of economics) which sparked the Arab Spring, and to bring Sunni Islamists to power in local elections.

This new perspective highlights the supposed potential dangers of democratization in the region, but also handily provides rhetorical ammunition to Russia’s allies in Syria and Iran: The Syrian regime can defend itself on the basis that it preventing the country falling into the hands of the Muslim brotherhood, and the Iranians can argue that there is a western-backed conspiracy against Shia Islam from which they need to protect the Iranian people.

From Democratist’s perspective, while it is would hardly come as a great surprise to discover that the Saudis may be funding Islamic parties in the region, the idea that the West would support them in such an endeavor is without the slightest foundation, and serves only the nomenklatura’s ideological/geopolitical objectives.

Additionally, in seeking to highlight the potential dangers of democratization in the middle East, RT deliberately ignores the extent to which political demands – democracy and rights – have been at the forefront of protests throughout the region. Instead RT seeks to rewrite the history of the Arab Spring in the Russian ruling class’s own image – playing up economic demands at the expense of democratic ones, whereas it has been clear, not least to the demonstrators themselves, that the two are in fact closely intertwined and mutually supporting. As the crowds shown by RT in Tahrir square demanding genuine reform yesterday attested, demands for democracy and rights have been, and remain central to the Arab Spring, and since this is the case it seems considerably less likely that the countries affected are likely to turn into anti-western theocracies than RT implies.

More fundamentally, what the Arab Spring highlights is that, while the last few years may have been witness to some democratic reversals in the CIS (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus), on the global scale, and from a longer term perspective, the last two centuries (and especially the last sixty-five years) demonstrate the growing international potency of the democratic ideal, and the erosion of autocracy as a legitimate form of governance, even in previously unexpected places (such as Egypt), and despite the United States’ perceived hypocrisy on this issue.

With the anniversary of the Egyptian revolution, the pressure for democratic reform in states which have reached the prerequisite level of economic and social development appear to be strengthening, rather than receeding. Even in Russia the population, whose docility was taken for granted by the ruling class (and the west) for much of the last decade, has finally given some indication of its potential, with the large demonstrations which followed last December’s rigged parliamentary elections.

Autocrats throughout the middle East, and wider world are being weighed, and found wanting by their people. Although this process may be delayed for some years in Russia, through economic growth, propaganda, rigged elections and the efforts of the FSB, the writing on the wall is clear for all to see.

It’s simply a question of when, and how.

August 16th 2011,

According to yesterday’s Russia Profile, leaders of the post-soviet states that make up the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) have recently been banging their heads together at a summit in Astana, in an attempt to avoid the revolutionary fates which have befallen some of their colleagues in the middle East.

As such, while CSTO has, since its creation in 1992 been essentially limited to a collective security set-up for Russia and the six states over which it retains some degree of hegemony (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), it is now beginning to take on an additional hue, seeking to collectively prevent the political destabilization of member state regimes.

Discussion has centered on the following suggestions;

Firstly, it looks like the future for Twitter, Facebook and other potentially “destructive” social media is looking somewhat dicey in CSTO countries, as they seek to create an “impregnable wall” to shut out colour revolutions (although whether this means regulation, a total ban, or rather just switching these sites off during periods of unrest remains to be decided).

Secondly, external military intervention by a shared Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) to prevent revolution in CSTO states has also been mooted, principally by embattled, but newly Russia-friendly Belarusian President (and current CSTO chair) Alyaksandr Lukashenka. However, this approach looks less plausible as part of a CSTO-wide strategy, since few of the other leaders trust their colleagues enough to give them a pretext for invasion.

With regard to social media, from Democratist’s perspective, despite the wailings of Russia Today and other propagandists, the revolutions in the middle East have not been the work of outside forces, a “CIA plot,” or other self-serving conspiracy tripe, but rather an inevitable result of the internal economic and social development and contradictions of Middle Eastern states, combined with popular attraction towards an ideal manifested externally (the relative political and economic success of a growing ”core” of democratic countries).

All seven CSTO states are likely to face a growth in similar pressures over the coming years, which may be exacerbated by renewed global downturn. However, regulation of the internet is unlikely to make much difference; it is technically difficult to pull off effectively over lengthy periods, and in any case many alternative sources of information already exist (or can be created) in terms of satellite TV, shortwave radio, and the circulation of books, periodicals and newspapers.

Additionally, such restrictions are likely to act as a yet another reminder to the populations of these countries of the repression to which they are subject. Nor is the internet decisively important as a tool for revolutionary organization (as we are now witnessing in Syria). It is certainly useful, but plenty of revolutions took place before internet age, and will surely continue to do regardless of whether populations have access to the internet, mobile phones or other devices.

However, Lukashenka’s position is more proximately precarious than those of other CSTO leaders, and gives some indication of a possible future scenario in Belarus if things were to go seriously awry. Moscow is keen to maintain control of Belarusian energy transit and oil refineries, and Lukashenka has been forced to the table by internal political and economic developments. In our estimation, the Russians would almost certainly be willing to use military force to ensure control rather than risk the emergence of a less pliable government in the event that Belarus entered into a period of serious internal unrest.

28th July 2011,

Perhaps the strongest intellectual case made for the domestic benefits of democratic governance over authoritarianism was set out by the philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994). Popper believed (see Popper by Bryan Magee, Fontana, 1973) that democracy was the best form of government because it allowed for the critical examination and correction of governments and their policies, and that it was therefore most able to correct previous policy mistakes, and more effectively address the social, political and economic problems a given society encounters than any other form of governance.

In order for this essential criticism to be assured, democracy must consist, not just of regular genuinely competitive elections, but critically also of the establishment and maintenance of “free institutions” (especially the rule of law), which enable the ruled to continue to criticize their rulers regardless of the government of the day.

Even in established democratic states, the threat from anti-democratic elements may remain considerable. Paradoxically therefore the free institutions which facilitate criticism must be protected from those who would use the very freedom they provide to destroy them. This is the responsibility of civil society, the media, an independent legal system, the police and security services. Many countries which formally claim to be democracies because they hold regular elections have weak institutions and therefore do not constitute democratic polities within the definition we are using here.

However, once institutional democracy has been established over a period of time, as noted by democratic peace theorists such as Michael Doyle, the democratization of formerly authoritarian states has proved beneficial for pre-existing democratic countries because democracies have very rarely (if ever) gone to war with one another. Entrenched internal democratization leads to increased international stability, and democratic countries therefore have an interest in the promotion of democratic governance.

Given the advantages outlined above, and the growing number of examples of relatively politically and economically successful democratic states over the past 70 years, as well as the current weakness of ideological alternatives, the democratic model has become an increasingly desirable one for many individuals and social movements in developing authoritarian states.

Recent examples of the trend towards democratization include the fall of communist regimes in 1989 and 1991, and revolutions in Serbia (2000), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), Lebanon (2005), Kyrgyzstan (2005), Moldova (2009), as well as the “great Arab Spring” of 2011.  However, it is important to remember that revolutions by themselves by no means signal an automatic shift to democratization without an entrenchment of free institutions over a lengthy period, and indeed very many of the cases cited above have been witness to subsequent setbacks.

From a historical sociological perspective Democratist would suggest that this process of revolution and democratization has been partly one of attraction towards an ideal manifested externally (the relative political and economic success of a growing ”core” of democratic states), and partly of internal economic, technological and social developments, and the inevitable social tensions capitalist modernity provokes.

But since specifically internal political and economic developments play a critical role in the spread of democracy, it is foolish for western states to believe that it is possible to export democracy at the barrel of a gun (as the US has attempted in Afghanistan and Iraq), or that they can have any overall control of the democratization process in developing countries. Instead, the West should try to carefully balance the gradualist facilitation of democratic development (through diplomatic, trade, media and other initiatives) with necessary realist policies (including, for example the military action we have seen in Libya) so that when revolutions (almost inevitably) occur in developing authoritarian states, they can retain at least some influence with the social movements and political parties constituting the new regime, and can press for the introduction and development of the critical democratic institutions.

25th June 2011,

Continuing our exploration of Ukraine’s kaleidoscopic regional diversity, Democratist recently spent a couple of days in Lviv: One time capital of Austro-Hungarian Galicia, architectural gem and UNESCO world heritage site, it was the focus of the western Ukrainian national revival in the late 19th century, and again in the 1980′s. Under President Yanukovich, it has become a rather defensive and self-conscious center of Ukrainian cultural and national independence and, since last October, electoral home to the reactionary, populist Svoboda party at the local level.

What is most immediately striking about Lviv and its surrounding oblasts is just how unlike the rest of Ukraine it is in terms of history and ambiance. Arriving by train,  Lviv station (1904) is an elegant, vaulted Art Nouveau monument to the Habsburg Monarchy which oversaw its construction, and which ruled Galicia from 1773 until 1918; a relic of a lost world of Austrian officials, Polish landowners, Jewish traders, and Ukrainian peasants. It is a testament to the extraordinarily diverse multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-confessional society that gave birth to the city’s many magnificent buildings, and which still existed when Galicia became a part of Poland at the end of the Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921); a world finally torn to shreds by Nazi genocide, and Stalin’s forced expulsion of the Poles after Galicia became part of the Ukrainian SSR at the end of the Second World war.

In fact, it was only after 1944 that the Ukrainian peasantry moved en masse into Lviv from the surrounding countryside and the city took on the ethnic character it maintains today: Up until then, Ukrainians had mostly eked out their lives in the country, while Poles and Jews dominated in the town. It was the grinding rural poverty and hunger that these peasants faced which had forced some two million of them to emigrate from Galicia, mostly to the US and Canada in the late 1900′s, thereby giving birth to the large Ukrainian diasporas in those countries.

But despite its provincialism, thanks largely to the efforts of the well-organized and civic-minded Ukrainian “Greek Catholic” church and related civic organizations, as well as the Czech and German examples, and an unusual degree of encouragement from the imperial administration, Ukrainian nationalism and culture flourished in Galicia in the second half of the nineteenth century. This occurred while a process of russification was continuing (especially after the 1876 Edict of Ems) in the Ukrainian territories to the East which had become part of the Russian Empire. However, the basis for the Habsburgs’ indulgence of the Ukrainians – including some representation in the Galician Diet after 1861, and the development of their own political parties, civil society and newspapers - was not liberalism, but rather imperial calculation: Vienna sought to build up Ukrainian national consciousness as a bulwark against rebellious Polish nationalism - to balance the Ukrainian peasantry in the countryside against the Polish landowners in the town.

Nonetheless, it was the Austro-Hungarian period, which was to provide the historical-sociological groundwork for the subsequent strong resilience of Ukrainian culture and language in the region compared with the rest of the country. Following the Soviet (1939), and then Nazi (1941) invasions, this found military expression through the creation of Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in 1943 under the leadership of Stepan Bandera. The UPA sought the creation of an independent Ukrainian state, and fought against the Poles, Soviets and Germans to this end: As such, at different points in the war it co-operated with the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS, and also played a role in the killing and ethnic cleansing of Poles in Galicia. While it officially disbanded in 1949, some units continued operations against the Soviets until 1956. Bandera himself was assassinated by the KGB in Munich in 1959.

It was therefore unsurprising that Galicia, as the “heartland of Ukrainian nationalism” - where the Uniate church remained strong (if underground) throughout the Soviet period, and dissident activity significant, should have been at the forefront of calls for Ukrainian independence from the USSR in the late 1980′s. As Anna Reid writes in her excellent Borderland: A Journey Through The History of Ukraine (1997) it was the nationalist movements based there that tipped the scales towards the Ukrainian Communist Party’s decision to declare independence after the failed coup of August 1991. And without them, given the ambivalence of many Ukrainians outside of the region towards their national identity at the time, the country may never have become independent at all.

Nor is it surprising that the region should have been a strong supporter of the Orange Revolution in 2004. However, the failure of the revolution to deliver on many of its promises, and the victory of Viktor Yanukovich in the 2010 Presidential elections have left Galicia frustrated and defensive. While the traditions of language, church and political activism remain strong, last October’s local elections saw the vociferously xenophobic (both anti-Russia and anti-western) and anti-democratic Svoboda party take up to 30% of the vote in the region, and it has now become a key player in local politics.

In turn, there is much speculation that Yanukovich’s Party of Regions (PoR) has been happy to provide Svoboda with publicity (and perhaps financial help) as a way to split the “Orange” vote – safe in the knowledge that such extremists will almost certainly never garner any significant support outside of Galicia. Many of the PoR’s policies, not least the closure of Ukrainian language schools in the East of the country by the divisive Russophile education minister Dmytro Tabachnyk, also seem calculated to provoke nationalist anger and reaction. However, since Svoboda gained about 5% of the national vote last year, it may well reach the 3% threshold required to be represented in parliament in the polls due in October 2012.

The PoR’s apparent covert support of Svoboda is a clever ploy that plays effectively on local fears and seems likely to further weaken the mainstream “national democratic” vote as represented by Yulia Tymoshenko. On the basis of Democratist’s discussions with various contacts within Ukraine, it appears to be part of a broader series of measures which are being introduced by the PoR to facilitate the weakening, demoralization, division and co-opting of the opposition, and the entrenchment of a managed democracy.

11th June 2011,

By way of a short summer break, and in order to broaden our understanding of Ukraine’s regional diversity, Democratist has just returned from a week in Crimea. Long the Soviet apparatchik’s holiday destination of choice, it remains popular with Ukrainians and Russians today, despite the lure of Turkey and Egypt.

While we recommend both the Simferopol-Yalta Trolleybus line (at 86 km, the longest in the world, and a mere 12 UAH or 95 pence for a one way ticket), and the Sebastopol harbour/Russian black sea fleet boat tour, by far the most intellectually rewarding aspect of our 5-day trip was the opportunity we had to meet with representatives of the Crimean Tatar community, at the their Mejlis (cabinet) secretariat in the regional capital, Simferopol.

The Crimean Tatars are a Sunni Muslim, Turkic people. They formed in Crimea in the 13th century as a branch of the Golden Horde, and dominated the peninsula for some 500 years. They were prominent in the slave trade until the early 1700′s, and provided Russian, Ukrainian and Polish slaves to the Ottoman Empire – under which they had become a protectorate in the late 1470′s.

However, Russia annexed Crimea in 1783, and the subsequent 200 years proved a disaster for the Tatars, with a tentative recovery only beginning in the late 1980′s.

From the time of annexation, and for much of the following century, the Tatars were subject to repression and an extraordinary degree of systematic cultural destruction. This in turn provoked mass emigration, as much of the population fled to remaining parts of the Ottoman empire. By 1897, they came to compose only about 30% of the inhabitants of Crimea.

The early Soviet period was marked by an initial resistance to the revolution and declaration of the first secular democratic republic in the Islamic world, the Crimean People’s Republic, in Simferopol in December 1917. This was followed by military defeat at the hands of the Bolsheviks a month later, then repression, mass executions, and deliberate starvation in the 1920′s and 1930′s. It has been estimated that about half the remaining Tatar population was killed by the mid-1930′s.

Given this course of events, it is perhaps understandable that the Tatar leadership should have chosen to collaborate with the Nazis after the 1941 invasion of the USSR. However, once the Red Army reestablished control over Crimea in 1944, Stalin responded with what was effectively his own “final solution” to the problem of the Tatar presence in strategically important Crimea. Under influence from the NKVD, he ordered the mass deportation of the entire remaining population to central Asia. While it was probably not his intention to physically destroy an entire people (as was the case with the holocaust), it is clear that the deportation essentially amounted to genocide within the terms of the 1948 UN Convention. According to Tatar NGOs just under half of those deported died within the first couple of years of exile.

Although all charges against the Tatars were lifted in 1967, they were not formally permitted to return to Crimea until 1989. Even since then, the steady trickle of returnees have faced discrimination at the hands of the heavily sovietized Russian/Ukrainian majority, many of whom moved to Crimea in the post-war period and were given confiscated Tatar property.

As of 2011, about 280,000 Tatars have returned to Crimea, so that they now constitute about 13-14% of the population. A further 100,000 or so remain in central Asia, many of whom would like to return, but lack the financial means.

In terms of political representation, while it does not have any official powers or legal status, about 90% of the returned Tatars support, and elect deputies to the 250 member Kurultai (parliament), and its 33 member executive Mejlis, both established in 1991. The Mejlis is led by respected former dissident and Human Rights campaigner Mustapha Cemilev, and has become the main point of contact for Ukrainian government dealings with the returnees.

According to Cemilev, and other representatives of the community Democratist spoke with, the main contemporary potential threats and problems facing the resettled Tatars include:

• The possibility that Crimea (only designated part of Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1954, and 65% ethnically Russian) might secede from Ukraine back to Russia, which would almost certainly lead to open conflict.
• The intensification of inter-ethnic tension as a result of Soviet-era and contemporary propaganda which seeks to justify the deportation. Many Russian nationalists in Crimea go as far as to say that the Tatars should be re-deported.
• The need for legal rulings on the status of Tatars in Crimea, saying that they have a right to settle there, to preserve their identity, as well as restitution for property confiscated in 1944.
• The need for increased international facilitation to help the return of those Tatars who wish to do so.
• The need to address a lack of amenities, high unemployment, and discrimination in terms of access to land.
• The need to create a comprehensive Tatar-language education system and cultural/media sphere (only 10% of Tatar children are currently educated in their own language). The establishment of Tatar as an official language in Crimea.

The Tatars’ main strategy in addressing these issues is currently more focused on deepened cooperation (and possible eventual Ukrainian integration) with the EU and NATO, rather than in trying to cut deals with local political groupings. They see the best hope for long-term stability, economic growth, and the legal rights, religious, cultural and educational autonomy they seek as lying with deeper Ukrainian integration into Euro-Atlantic structures. In this regard, while NATO membership is firmly off the table for the foreseeable future, the Yanukovich government’s recent renewed seriousness with regard to the signing of a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with the EU will surely come as a welcome development.

The Tatars are now faced with both future opportunities and lingering threats. To a large extent, the threat of Crimean succession back to Russia (it is currently supported by 70% of ethnic Russians in Crimea) will remain for many decades to come, and is dependent as much upon developments within Russia itself, as it is on the political and economic development of Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula.

Nonetheless, in order to benefit as much as possible from the opportunities presented by Ukraine’s European aspirations, the emergent generation of Tatar leaders is going to have to develop its ability to lobby persuasively and professionally at the international level. If the voices of this small ethnic group are to be heard above the din of competing interests, a new cadre of professionals, fluent in English, and with qualifications from Western Universities will be required to make the case for Tatars in Brussels and Washington over the coming decades.

11th June 2011,

May 31st 2011,

Rumours are circulating in Tirsapol, capital of the unrecognized breakaway Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR) of a change in political leadership at the next Presidential elections, due in December.

The PMR has been run by former Communist appartchik, Igor Smirnov, since the conflict which led to its succession from the rest of Moldova in 1992, and, since that time, has developed an international reputation as a hotbed of smuggling, corruption and authoritarianism.

But while any meaningful attempt to address these problems is unlikely in a place where a handful of people own almost the entire economy, and there is no real history of free or fair elections, at least some superficial alteration among the current leadership may be in the offing.

The reason behind this trend is a newly heightened pressure from Russia, which retains 1200 peacekeepers in the PMR, and (so it is said) wants the intransigent Smirnov out of the way so they can move forward with a plan to bring the frozen Transnistria conflict closer to resolution.

This, in turn, is seen as a first step as part of a controversial broader proposed deal with the German government, contained in the “Meseberg Memorandum” (signed by Chancellor Merkel and President Medvedev last June) which could potentially give Russia an enhanced voice in the EU’s security decision-making bodies.

A possible liberalization of visa restrictions for Russians entering the Schengen zone may be an additional incentive.

Apart from the rumours, another, more concrete indication of Russian intentions is that formal internationally brokered negotiations on a settlement of the PMR’s status are expected to reconvene at a meeting in Moscow on 21st June, after a break of some five years.

But while the formal resumption of negotiations would certainly be a step in the right direction,  Smirnov’s ouster, if and when it comes, is likely to be a more significant indicator of Russian seriousness in relation to moving the process forward, and it will be interesting to see how things progress following the selection and announcement of Presidential candidates in September.

Democratist remains sceptical about the extent to which other EU members will be willing to accept any Russian influence over their foreign policies in the coming years. But we hope that some tentative peaceful move towards a resolution of the current stalemate, combined with a change at the top (even a stage-managed one) will nudge the long-suffering Transnistrian people (unemployment is 49%, and 80% in the villages) a little closer towards considering the possibility of eventually taking their destiny into their own hands.

It will be harder for Moldova to join the EU that it was for neighbouring Romania, but Moldovan society has already made its preferences clear.

27th May 2011,

Moldova remains in a state of political upheaval initiated by the inability of the Communists to win the constitutionally required 61 seats to elect a President in the April 2009 parliamentary elections. The two years since then have seen several additional early votes – the last in November – but while the three-party coalition that forms the ruling Alliance for European Integration (AIE) has gained a few more MP’s each time, they still have only 59, and so are unable to elect one of their number to the presidency.

Marian Lupu (former Communist rising star and now leader of the breakaway Democratic Party) has filled the role of acting President since December. He looks set to do so for some months to come, especially since the constitutional court decided in February that it was not necessary for the government to hold a vote to appoint a new President within two months of the resignation of the last one (and did not provide an alternate time frame).

And yet a new set of elections early next year remains a possibility: Two rounds of municipal polls are due on 5th and 19th June. If the AIE, and especially Vlad Filat’s Liberal Democrats perform well (as expected), and the Communists lose control of one of the larger cities currently under their sway, then Filat may decide to have another crack at the top job.

In the meantime, it looks unlikely that either of his two AIE partners (Lupu’s Democrats or Mihai Ghimpu’s Liberals) will seek to block his path to power by cutting a deal with the Communists: They would almost certainly be seen as traitors to the cause of Moldova’s European integration (supported by about 70% of the population), and would suffer badly at the next election.

However, this might change if the fallout from the local polls provoke a challenge to Vladimir Voronin’s leadership of the Communists. If Igor Dodon, their mayoral candidate in Chisinau does well, while the Party’s vote in the rest of Moldova declines, then the young, centrist Dodon may make a bid to take control of the Party from the septuagenarian Voronin. This in turn would make the Communists a much more acceptable prospect for a possible deal with one or more of the AIE coalition partners.

But whether the current coalition continues, or the Liberal Democrats, or (less likely) a new coalition including Lupu and Dodon comes out on top, it seems implausible the EU’s generous financial support to Moldova will dry up any time soon: Corruption remains a serious problem with has still not been properly addressed, but in terms of progress towards democratization, media freedom and civil society, as well as prospects for co-operation with the EU on issues such as border controls and visa regularization, Moldova’s prospects are notably better than those of fellow EU Eastern Partnership members Belarus or Ukraine. This is not likely to change, given the demographic situation as expressed in the last three parliamentary elections (older Communist voters are dying off, and are not being replaced by many younger ones).

On this basis, the political and sociological foundation for Moldova’s continued EU orientation will remain in place. This is a positive development which, combined with increased free trade, and ongoing remittances from the EU, will do much to propel already robust economic growth (6.9% last year) and lead to the continued entrenchment of Moldova’s remarkably vibrant democracy. However, given enlargement fatigue and economic malaise, as well as the ongoing Transnistria issue, while the EU may be able to provide some additional incentives over the next few years, it looks like Moldova’s path to membership may still take several decades.

24th May 2011,

Last week, Democratist presented our readers with a vision of Ukraine’s future as seen from the upper reaches of the Party of the Regions (PoR). This week we’ve been talking to some friends from the other side of the political divide about the current situation, and ongoing preparations for the October 2012 parliamentary elections.

They made the following points;

Opinion polls are of varying quality, but it seems likely that the PoR has lost up to half the support it had at the time of the presidential elections last February, and is unlikely to be able to recapture it. This may be one reason why the government has decided to hold the next parliamentary elections as late as possible.

The popular mood has become angry and frustrated due to continuing problems with the economy, and more specifically in relation to rapidly increasing corruption. This is more pronounced in the east, where politically connected criminals have started to demand larger sums from local businesses.

The oligarchs that fund the PoR are interested in access to European markets, and support the signing of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) as part of an Association Agreement with the EU. However, it is necessary for the leadership to maintain the rhetoric of continued good relations with Russia to placate their supporters. There are doubts about whether the EU will be ready to sign the DCFTA by the end of the year, despite the fact that it has become a central element of government policy. The EU may seek to postpone the deal on the basis that greater progress needs to be made on human rights issues, or reforms proposed by the IMF. The normal process of ratification is, even without additional complications, is usually rather drawn out. A continuing unwillingness to upset Russia may also be a factor.

The language issue is critical for the PoR. Currently, only Ukrainian has the status of a state language, even though many Ukrainians prefer to speak russian. The PoR has repeatedly promised to make Russian an official language, but has not yet delivered. The reason for this may be at least partly that, given how unpopular they have become, they fear that if they were to do so before the parliamentary elections next October, many of their voters would see no further reason to support them. However, this presumably depends on how the other parties react.  Nationalist grandstanding from the opposition could in fact help the PoR considerably.

With its ratings falling, the PoR would almost certainly fare very badly in next year’s parliamentary elections, given a free vote. They are therefore in the process of introducing a number of measures to tilt the situation to their advantage. These include;

• The politically-motivated legal harassment, and possible future imprisonment of Tymoshenko (and other opposition figures).
• Increasing the threshold for party representation in Parliament from 3% to 5, 7, or even 10%.
• The creation of an electoral system which allows for half of MP’s to be drawn from party lists, and the others to be elected as independents (thereby allowing these to be bribed or blackmailed into joining the PoR’s ranks after the election, as happened in he wake of last year’s presidential elections).
• Plus all of the usual post-soviet electoral fun and games.

Additionally, given the popularity of acting Mayor of Kiev Oleksander Popov (who took over the running of the city from the erratic Leonid Chernovetskyi last December) it seems likely that the PoR will push for a mayoral vote in Kiev at the same time as the parliamentary elections.

18th May 2011,

Democratist has spent the past couple of days in Odessa, where he met a new contact who seems to know everyone worth knowing there, and certainly talks a good game.

Our new friend informs us that the next 18 months are about to witness a significant and decisive shift in Ukrainian foreign policy.

Apparently, the intensified wave of high-level corruption since Yanukovich came to power last year is essentially a final fight over the spoils as part of a prelude to a new period of Ukraine making a concerted effort to deepen its relationship with the EU. This in turn will lead to enhanced domestic reform, a clampdown on corruption, and an unequivocal return to the path of democratization.

In this regard, the PoR’s key aims over the coming months are the completion of an EU Association Agreement, including a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) by the end of he year, and the agreement of a much simplified visa regime for Ukrainian Citizens visiting the EU next summer (perhaps to coincide with Ukraine’s joint hosting of Euro 2012 with Poland in June/July). The PoR believes that the successful conclusion of these agreements would give it a considerable (and badly needed) boost in the October 2012 parliamentary elections.

This renewed concentration on EU integration comes after Ukraine ignored Russia’s invitation to join its Customs Union in late April, despite Putin’s promises that Ukraine would earn an additional $6.5 billion to $9 billion per annum from the deal. It has been rumoured for some time that the oligarchy that funds the PoR has come to see the Russian “virtual mafia state” as a key threat to its own independence (although this does not automatically make them keen Europeans, or mean that they will easily accept restrictions on their own activities). Additionally, according to almost everyone Democratist has spoken to, there is considerable popular sentiment throughout the country that Ukraine will be far better off as an independent state than it would be as a glorified southern province of Russia. More specifically, the pro-European policy is being driven to a considerable extent by the First Deputy Head of the presidential administration, the economist Irina Akimova.

From Democratist’s perspective, Ukraine’s timely completion of the Association Agreement and DCFTA would be most welcome, as it would prove beneficial to both the European and Ukrainian economies and set the stage for further integration. If these negotiations are indeed successfully completed by the end of the year then it certainly would make a great deal of sense to reward the government with a relaxation of the EU’s visa requirements next summer (provided all required criteria are met) with a view to scrapping visa requirements entirely for Ukrainians over the medium term. The current tight restrictions are very unpopular in Ukraine, with many people feeling that they are being treated more like potential criminals, than potential “Europeans”.

However, further progression towards full integration beyond that point is clearly going to take some time, and the current situation is not very promising. A critical indication of whether Yanukovich is really serious about Ukraine’s eventual European orientation will come during the conduct of the parliamentary elections next October: If domestic and international observers conclude that these are run in a free and fair manner (with none of the problems witnessed in the municipal polls last year), if the media and judicial situations show sharp improvements, if there is no abuse of “administrative resources”, if the rumours that the PoR is secretly funding the nationalist Svoboda Party in Western Ukraine suddenly cease, and if Tymoshenko does not discover that she is unable to contest the poll because she is in prison on politically-motivated charges, then even the more reluctant EU member-states will have to concede that Yanukovich is someone who means to transform Ukraine, and with whom they should do business.