Seeing Orange

Ukrainians went to the polls on Sunday to elect a president for the first time since the dramatic events of 2004-2005 that came to be known as the Orange Revolution. Early results indicate that Viktor Yanukovych, the leader of the parliamentary opposition, and Yulia Tymoshenko, the current prime minister, lead the pack of 18 candidates, with Yanukovych in position to garner between 31 and 38 percent to Tymoshenko's 25 to 27 percent. The Central Election Commission is unlikely to issue the final tally for at least a week, but it is clear that neither candidate will end up with over 50 percent of the vote, triggering a runoff on Feb. 7. While this result might seem like a blow to Western interests, a closer look at both the last five years of Ukrainian politics under Yushchenko and the likely policies of his probable successors shows that the situation is far less dire than it has been portrayed.

Coverage of the elections in the Western press has been marked by hand-wringing about the implications of a win for either of the two frontrunners, especially the allegedly "pro-Russian" Yanukovych. One headline read, "Orange sunset as Ukraine poll heralds turn to Russia." After all, Yanukovych was the "villain" in the Orange Revolution drama -- the Kremlin-endorsed candidate who was vanquished by the purportedly "democratic," pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko in a repeat vote after the second round of the presidential elections in 2005 that was marred by fraud. Although Tymoshenko -- the Orange Revolution's other international icon -- was Yushchenko's close ally during the uprising, and became his prime minister after he took office, she is now portrayed as nearly as hostile to NATO and the European Union as Yanukovych. Since the main goal of Yushchenko's presidency was, according to the prevailing conventional wisdom, anchoring Ukraine in the West, the election, no matter which of the two emerges victorious on Feb. 7, represents the Ukrainian people's repudiation of this goal -- all the more so because Yushchenko appears to have garnered only 6 percent of the vote in his reelection bid.

Fortunately, these assertions are largely bogus. They rely on a superficial account of Yushchenko's presidency, mischaracterizations of the two presidential frontrunners, and a misunderstanding of the role of the president in Ukraine's political system. In fact, a Tymoshenko or a Yanukovych victory is unlikely to significantly impact the country's relations with NATO, the European Union, or the United States, and its ramifications for Russia are mixed. However, a Tymoshenko victory might present the opportunity for an end to the political instability that has paralyzed Ukrainian policy-making for the past several years, and make it more likely that much-needed reforms will be implemented.

Yushchenko does appear to be genuinely committed to integrating his country into the Euro-Atlantic community. During his tenure several important steps were taken toward that end: Ukraine became a member of the World Trade Organization; it received a promise that it would eventually become a NATO member-state; it joined the EU Eastern Partnership - a forum for the alliance's former Soviet neighbors; and negotiations began on a free trade agreement with Brussels.

But these achievements were relatively modest, and were outweighed by the damage to the country's international reputation caused by the unfulfilled promises and political infighting that characterized his tenure. With commitments consistently broken (such the conditions attached to a $16.4 billion International Monetary Fund loan, largely due to Yushchenko's failure to veto a massive budget-busting hike in social benefits) and a president who proved incapable of demonstrating competent leadership, Ukraine came to be seen as a basket case, and genuine progress toward integration with the West ground to a halt.

Yushchenko also discredited the Westernization project within Ukraine. He pushed too hard on divisive issues like NATO membership and exacerbated Ukraine's regional fissures by forcing the country's largely Russian-speaking southern and eastern regions to use the Ukrainian language and taking controversial stances on historical issues (earlier this month, for example, he issued a decree creating a holiday and ordering cultural events in honor of Ukrainian soldiers who fought with Austro-Hungarian forces against Russia in World War I). By the end of his tenure, more Ukrainians supported a union with Belarus and Russia than joining the EU, and less than 20 percent favored NATO accession.

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