When you have two political camps competing for power and the country’s top jobs, it’s often referred to as democracy. America is a case in point. But what do you call the Ukrainian way of competing? It strains the definition of democracy when the two largest political camps use brute force and sneaky court rulings to take over the country’s ballot printing house. And it sullies the concept further when the two sides fight for control of the court that will hear appeals to election results.
The week, presidential candidate Victor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions accused Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc of attempting to use state-owned printing house Ukraina to print an additional 1.5 million ballots – allegedly for ballot stuffing. Tymoshenko, who had appointed a new director for the printing house just days earlier, shot back and accused the Party of Regions of being the guilty party. By mid-week, Interior Ministry troops broke into the building after breaking windows and throwing in either tear-gas or smoke bombs, depending on who is telling the story. The president ordered troops loyal to him to oversee the printing of ballots. As things started to settle down at Ukraina, a new hotspot appeared on Jan. 27. Three lawmakers backing Yanukovych forced their way into the Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeals, precisely the court that has jurisdiction over election-related matters.
On Jan. 28, parliament fired Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko but Tymoshenko kept him in charge of the nation’s 300,000 law enforcement officers as first deputy mnister.
All sides are using this messy event to shift voter sentiment in their favor and, dangerously, to trample on basic rules of law, order and democracy. The combatants appear ready to use any means to seize power, dashing hopes for avoiding a repeat of the 2004 fraudulent presidential election that triggered the Orange Revolution. Both Tymoshenko and Yanukovych call themselves democrats. Their conduct, however, provides warning signals about how they could abuse power as president. It’s a good illustration of why Ukraine needs more public control over its top politicians.
