Joining EU
and NATO is explicitly supported by
Batkivschina. Poroshenko bloc supports joining EU only, while Opposition Block
supports neutral status of Ukraine. Samopomich suggests that Ukraine cancel its
neutrality status. Radical Party (Lyashko) stays silent. People’s Front
(Yatsenyuk) mentions “Euroatlantic integration” and “Ukraine as a European
country,” although it is not clear what’s meant. This is remarkable given that
the Second Maidan Revolution started as a pro-EU movement. In any case, the unwillingness
of all key players to announce their commitment to join EU or NATO suggests
that the new parliament will not have a strong push to join NATO or EU but
there could be some groundwork laid for a future push.
Russian
Language, Investigation of the murders on Maidan in Kyiv and in Odesa (and
elsewhere), and Demilitarization
are mentioned in the platform of Opposition Bloc, but nowhere else. This is
troubling because it suggests that the majority in the parliament might fail to
recognize the importance of reconciliating the different groups of the
Ukrainian public. It is also suggestive the politics continues to be regional
and thus reduction in tensions is not as likely as one would like. Finally,
since the majority of the parties do not take a clear position in writing on
the issues of language as well asindependent and unbiased investigation of the
events of the crisis, these issues can be hijacked in the future by forces
interested in polarization and discontent.
Lustration is opposed by Opposition Bloc, and
supported by everyone else. Thus, the parliament will be very supportive of
removing from power the individuals associated with the previous regime. It
remains to be seen whether the lustration becomes a mechanism of repression.
Concerns about (the population of)
Donbas and Crimea appear in the programs of Batkivschina, Opposition Bloc,
Poroshenko Bloc, and People’s Front (Yatsenyuk). Given that these are Ukrainian
lands populated by Ukrainian citizens, it is startling that the other parties do
not find it important to appeal to constituency in these regions.
No party supports trading land as a market commodity. Therefore, none of the parties is truly committed to free market
ideology and the murky deals with de facto trading land will continue through
informal institutions. This populist silence could be very damaging
economically because it’s hard to imagine massive investment in agribusiness
when land is not freely traded—and hence cannot be used as collateral. In
addition, shadow land markets can provide a fertile ground for corrupting
everyone in power. Since the pressure to get more revenue from agribusiness is
likely to rise, the new Parliament may set up a surrogate for land markets.
Demands for nationalization
of some industries or punishing some oligarchs by confiscating their assets are
supported only by the Radical Party (Lyashko) and hence are unlikely to be systemically
on the agenda of the new Parliament. Nevertheless, isolated attempts at
redistribution of the major assets from the losers to the winners are not out
of the question, in the spirit of Ukrainian politics.
State
control of the economy vs deregulation. Many parties mention deregulation in some form. Thus, the
consensus for deregulation in the new parliament is likely, but it will be
opposed by vested interests benefiting from barriers to entry and extortion
opportunities due to regulation.
Most parties suggest measures to support domestic producers, including
coal mines that cost the state budget at least $1 billion dollars a year. Thus,
we are unlikely to see the new Parliament embracing free trade and it may take
some time before details of the association agreement are fulfilled.
All parties but People’s Front
promise to reduce taxes to stimulate
private business and encourage tax compliance. The most popular target for a
tax cut is the payroll tax, a very significant source of revenue for the
government. How such tax cuts can be implemented when the fiscal deficit is so
big is not clear. If the new Parliament indeed pushes for such tax cuts, it
will have to slash public spending a lot too. Most parties stay silent about
cutting welfare programs, expenditures on education and healthcare and, if
anything, promise to spend more
(e.g., on the army). None addressed the problem of large budget deficit. As a
result, simplification of tax administration and termination of tax loopholes
are more likely than deep tax cuts.
Decentralization
is almost uniformly supported, but
the parties differ on the details about whether the local executive should be
elected directly by the public or by locally elected councils. If
decentralization goes ahead, the President and the Prime Minister might have
incentives to reestablish control over local executive by retaining veto rights
over the local executive. In addition, an opportunity of influence over local
executive is control of the budget. A simple and transparent formula of
splitting the budget between the national and the local budgets will be more
difficult to manipulate and, thus, would be helpful to advance decentralization
de fact, and not only on paper.
Transparency
of property rights and
prosecution of state officials if they cannot explain their assets,
open party lists, judicial reform, and party finance reform
have support among most of the parties and these are, perhaps, the areas where
the civil society activists and the international agencies and donors might
want to concentrate their pressure on the parliament and the government.
Removing immunity from the
members of parliament is forgotten and only mentioned by Samopomich and
Batkivschina. Although there is renewed interest to the issue in the media just
after the election, it unlikely to happen without substantive pressure from the
public. Batkivchina also insists on juries in courts and passing the law
about impeachment of the President. Poroshenko bloc suggests re-election of local councils that
“have lost trust of people”. These might be good measures as they will continue
to provide incentives for healthy political competition. However, given the
Proshenko party’s performance in the election, it might reconsider whether it
wants to accelerate local elections.
People’s Front (Yatsenyuk) and Opposition
Bloc acknowledge importance of energy independence. This is a common
ground for cooperation among these parties, although it is likely that the
parties’ views over the preferred way to attain energy independence are quite
different. The issue of energy independence is fundamental to the sovereignty
of Ukraine and the parliament will have to focus on it. So reforms of Naftogaz
and legislation encouraging accountability, diversification of sources of
energy, and introduction of energy saving technologies might be possible.
Many parties mention military (and police) reform, and so
some action in that direction is very likely.
Batkivchina is the only party that
mentions the conflict of interest for state officials who own
businesses. The silence of the other parties is intriguing, especially
given the promises by the President of Ukraine to sell his assets after he
enters the office.
Only Poroshenko bloc and Samopomich
mention intentions to reform civil
service, but do not provide specifics or suggest downsizing of bureaucracy. This lack of focus on the “mechanics” of
the state can backfire at the stage when well-meant legislation is going to be
implemented by inefficient/corrupt/incompetent government officials. Similarly,
no party discusses trimmingexcessive state expenditures. Naturally, no party
wants to bring up unpopular issues in their programs prior to elections, even
if dealing with these issues is inevitable.
In general, the new parliament is
likely to be sympathetic to reforms in certain areas, such as judicial reform,
political party reform, improving transparency of property rights, continuation
of lustration, some anti-corruption legislation, decentralization of power,
deregulation, and energy reform. Surprisingly, once the populist language is
stripped down, the majority of parties that are aboutto enter the parliament
agree on the needed institutional reforms. If these reforms go through, they
can put Ukraine on the path of becoming a more democratic and less corrupt
country. Nevertheless, these reforms will be opposed by the vested interests
within and outside the state, and so the people of Ukraine continue to face an
uphill battle. The success of the reforms will hinge on the pressure applied
within the country by the political activists and from outside of the country
by the Western politicians and supporting agencies.
The foreign policy will continue to
be highly complicated, as the programs show only a general intention to move
Ukraine closer to the EU and NATO. Similarly, judging on the party platforms
regional reconciliation is unlikely, and thus the foreign powers and the
reactionary elements within Ukraine will continue to have plenty of
opportunities to stir up trouble when needed. This will severely limit the
countries capacity to conduct reforms threatening to vested interests.
Yet, another word of caution is in
order. While the stated underlying ideology of most parties is rather liberal
and market-oriented, many of them advocate protection or promotion of specific
industries (so called, growth points). This is against the spirit of the free
markets approach and is indicative of the post-Soviet training in economics.
The most striking example is that 20+ years of the collapse of the Soviet
Union, Ukraine is still not ready to talk about introducing free markets for
land.
Editorial Board of VoxUkraine
consists of: Olena Bilan (Dragon
Capital),Volodymyr Bilotkach (Newcastle U.), Dmytro Boyarchuk (CASE), Yuriy Gorodnichenko
(UC Berkeley), Veronika Movchan (IER), Tymofiy Mylovanov (U. of Pittsburgh),
Dmytro Sologub (Raiffeisen Bank Aval), Oleksandr Talavera (U. of Sheffield),
Oleksandr Zholud (International Center for Policy Studies)
