The demonstrations in kyiv last April were the culmination of a long struggle at the top of power. A struggle which opposes less the “ prorussian ” to “ pro-Western That a corrupt oligarchy for the forces of democratization.
The mobilization that appeared at the center of kyiv-a kind of blue counter-revolution-does not date from the act of dissolution of the Parliament signed by President IouchChenko on April 2. Its origins go back much further, until the outcome of the “ Orange revolution “From the end of 2004. To prevent the movement mobilized at the time – which gathered, for more than two weeks, hundreds of thousands of people of all provenance – ending in violence, a compromise was then accepted by the protagonists: developed in the precipitation, he provided for a new presidential election” honest In exchange for a major constitutional change, the strengthening of the Prime Minister’s power at the expense of that of the President. The forces mobilized by Viktor IouchChenko won on one side what they lost on the other. Thus opened a period which can be described as “ constitutional instability “, And who culminated with the events of last April.
Regardless of the disappointment – often justified – aroused by the power resulting from the “ Orange revolution », We must not forget the context in which Viktor IouchChenko came to the orders of the State. During the first months of 2005, it is the feeling of panic that dominates: many members of the old power hide or find asylum in Moscow ; Others commit suicide or disappear in unclear conditions. The most compromised leaders of the old communist regime are converting to a more “political life” democratic “, But according to their own sense. Parliament practices a systematic obstruction of the institutional processes which would have made it possible to carry out reforms and, in the long term, a radical change of the system. The population, followed by the Democratic forces, had asked that those responsible for embezzlement be prosecuted. However, the courts of justice are purchased at unbeatable prices: threatened oligarchs explode the prices of corruption and drape themselves from legality. Needless to say, the surveys of the assassination of journalist Gongadzé. Or on the poisoning of President IouchChenko do not succeed.
The formation of the Constitutional Court, the only institution likely to regulate the clashes between the protagonists, is systematically blocked until the president signs, in the form of a “ memorandum », A kind of white one in the party of the regions led by his rival Viktor Ianoukovitch, assuring him, among other things, that his members will not risk” political prosecution ». The parliamentary elections of 2006, now disputed in proportional, promote entry into the chamber of leaders of the old regime thus protected by the precious immunity. The Parliament, whose dissolution triggered the demonstrations in kyiv, comes from this ballot which saw the spectacular arrival of an oligarchy which, until then, had lined in the shadows.
The 2006 elections marked the return to the highest level of the leaders of the Léonide Kutchma regime: the former official of the latter’s tax administration, known for his fraudulent practices, is today Vice-Prime Minister. The former police chief, accused of having given the order to use force against the demonstrators in 2004, became vice-minister of the interior. The country therefore attends the progressive restoration of the “ old regime “, Reinforced by the politico-financial powers of the eastern regions of the country, which take advantage of the economic upturn to consolidate and extend their positions.
At the beginning of 2007, the Parliament disclosed a series of laws and measures intended to legitimize the supremacy of a coalition which seizes all the levers of power: abolition of the last prerogatives of the president on the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense, turning by all possible means of opposition deputies, allowing the dominant coalition of consolidating its takeover. We are also witnessing the return of censorship – while media freedom remained one of the main achievements of the Orange revolution – and practices of “ revenge Which recall annoying memories, such as the search of the young Minister of the Interior dismissed before Christmas.
As at the end of the Kutchma era, purchases of high profit companies are multiplying in a hurry, in an absence of transparency that has become customary. Typically clan methods – blocking, blackmail, taking control – become modes of government: to drive the Minister of Foreign Affairs Boris Tarassiouk, it is prohibited from entering the Council of Ministers, then we cut the budget of his ministry. The same tactic is applied for the early parliamentary elections, which the outgoing government has already announced that it was impossible to finance them.
The blue counter-revolution uses the orange revolution as a layer: we go up the theater of tents and mass mobilization, we cry out political repression As soon as justice manifests itself ; When the conflict is growing, the Prime Minister calls on international mediation. Likewise, all the misunderstandings with the west reappear, amplified by television images. The same external signs – camps, population rallies, flags that have just changed color – can give the illusion of an answer to the orange revolution. After all, why what we hastened to call the “ eastern part “Of the country would it not have the right to come and parade in the center of the capital, since the” western part Had done so ? Could we not see a kind of “ cohabitation ” – or even an enlarged coalition – like those that can be seen in a real democracy, where different political sensitivities prove the stability of democracy by their very confrontation ? With a big difference: the Ukrainian state is not based on a stable democratic basis and these heartbreak may have it wavering.
The international community is rightly worried about the risks of the current situation, but the previous episode, although quieter, was no less dangerous. Rather than a confrontation between preorusian and pro-Western hypothetics, it is a battle for democracy that is played out, less in the street than at the level of the state, in a larger general landscape: a quest for democracy inseparable from the exit of the oligarchic territory which stifles post-Soviet space and exceeds the sole framework of Ukraine.
article drawn from The life of ideas (paper version) n ° 22/23, dated May/June 2007