A three-legged race is looming in the first round of Ukraine’s presidential election on March 31, featuring the incumbent Petro Poroshenko, the Western-leaning ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and the TV comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is currently in the lead. Some see Zelenskiy as the Emmanuel Macron of Ukraine. Some see him as the country’s Donald Trump. Others worry that he will combine the youthful impetuosity of Macron with the incompetence of Trump.
As usual, the outcome is completely unpredictable as Ukrainian polling is even harder to divine than it was during the Brexit campaign. This is largely because Ukrainian voting and campaigning culture have not matured since post-Soviet independence in 1991. Polling in Ukraine, while conducted regularly, is almost always manipulated. Even when conducted correctly the polling is not informative due to structural flaws in Ukrainian electoral law.
In Ukraine, anyone who can raise $50,000 can submit an application to run for president. This creates a field of almost 40 presidential nominees. This bloated field does no favors for Ukrainian democracy. The wide array of candidates and the large sums of money involved conspire to work against anyone who does not have the backing of an oligarch-owned TV station. Any reforms to the process need to institute a requirement for a minimum number of supportive signatures, rather than a mere down payment of an amount of money that very few Ukrainians can muster.
In Ukraine, the focus on policies is largely meaningless. All candidates have regional strongholds and the often murky background of the candidates creates a lack of transparency. This is compounded by juvenile campaign maneuvers (such as the registration of a second candidate named Tymoshenko, so that voter error is encouraged).
Electoral reform has been stalled so much by oligarchs who still control the media landscape so that only favored candidates will receive exposure and promotion. This continues a now established Ukrainian tradition of oligarchs acting as kingmakers. The unpredictable and flawed political culture is thrown before an exhausted electorate who can no longer distinguish between protest vote and actual protest in any endorsement of a president.
The international community must realize that the biggest threat to reform in Ukraine is the continuing sabotage of the country along Western rules-based lines. When it comes to Ukraine we all must ask which candidate is in the best position to counter Russian intervention and military threats.
Patently the West cannot continue in its position of blithe detachment. It treats each Ukrainian election as a slapstick sideshow (although, to be fair, the last election featured a Darth Vader party that could not register for want of ID).
Yet the Ukrainian elections are crucially important to the West, for this is Putin’s last chance to reverse the reform process and steps towards western orientation. Despite this the Europeans do not give vision or encouragement, which is odd, given the common view, in the European Union at least, is that the European vision will only prevail if there is a consolidation of all European nations under one umbrella. Therefore a Ukraine that aspires to subscribe to this idea, even in an attenuated form, cannot be ignored.
Against this is ranged the growing force of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intelligence machinery, which interfered so successfully in both the Trump election and, allegedly, also in the Brexit vote. This machinery has become even more sophisticated in generating confusion and rumor mills. The West seems increasingly deaf and naïve to these destabilizing threats.
The idea that Ukrainians may choose the new face of Zelenskiy for president looks reckless from a national security perspective. However, all three major candidates are flawed. Yet this is not ultimately important for the EU and Western interests. The EU must assist Ukraine whoever wins the election. The fact that Russian intelligence is so active in Ukraine jeopardizes the whole stability of the West.
In this light, the true recklessness would be to ignore this threat. It is certainly a case of when not if Putin’s capability to manipulate and spread chaos will be used to greater effect in the West. Ukraine will be a test case of European resolve and its ability to foster rules-based stability.
