Five years after the EuroMaidan Revolution ended, much has changed for the better in Ukraine, yet much has not.
While President Viktor Yanukovych (who also triggered the 2004 Orange Revolution by trying to rig the presidential election) left power with his corrupt cronies, they have escaped punishment and most of the $40 billion they stole has not been recovered. Moreover, too many of his allies are still free in Ukraine, as cancers on society.
Justice still has not come for the 100 demonstrators killed by Yanukovych’s police.
Ukraine paid other heavy prices for its revolution, including the Kremlin’s military invasion and seizure of Crimea and its war in the Donbas. But the Kremlin’s war has had the upside of exposing, once and for all, Russia’s contempt for Ukraine as anything but a subservient colony. Far from failing to break the nation’s will, Ukrainians have proven their fierce determination to never surrender. Ukraine is getting out of Russia’s orbit, hopefully forever. Thankfully, Ukraine is now firmly on course to joining the family of democratic European states and NATO.
Yet Ukraine’s pervasive corruption, weak institutions, tired oligarchic elite and stuttering economy, hamstrung by overregulation and the failure to create enough jobs to stop the country’s best and brightest from leaving, would be familiar to anyone from 10 or 15 years ago.
With the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, Ukraine has another chance for change. The next president should end the monopolies, de-oligarchize society, champion free competition and markets, establish rule and law, independent and effective courts, police, prosecutors, and launch a full-scale assault on corruption.
Despite President Petro Poroshenko’s achievements, he’s failed to fulfill the hopes of the EuroMaidan Revolution on many fronts, which is why he faces an uphill re-election battle and why so many in the polls yearn for a new face in the race.
In five years, we hope to have better changes to report from Ukraine, no matter who is the next president.
