Officially today has been declared "Freedom Day" by Yushchenko, to celebrate the beginning of the Orange Revolution. On November 21, 2004, the second round of the Ukrainian election was held, and on November 22, when it became clear than Yanukovych and pals had stolen it, people started taking to the streets.
The Orange Revolution was certainly successful in that the fraudulent result was overturned, and in the rerun the guy who should have won Round 2 finally got his win.
However, a number of my Ukrainian friends have been depressed recently about Yushchenko firing Tymoshenko, the "Memorandum of Understanding" with Yanukovych, the rising cost of everything (having to do with Ukraine's current economic difficulties), and the recent poll figures suggesting that Regions of Ukraine might get enough votes to put Yanukovych in as newly-empowered Prime Minister in March 2006. "What did we (and a third of the nation) have the Orange Revolution for?" they ask.
This is what.
Things to Celebrate on Orange Day
- Democratic Choice: As I will say a million times if I have to - throughout the Orange Revolution, precedent was more important than President. The results on November 22 were very straightforward, Yushchenko had won more of the votes, and the results had been falsified. There had been numerous violations of election law on polling day against Yushchenko, during a process even more suspect than the October vote. Ukrainians had been cheated.
Maybe Yanukovych and the Party of Regions will win big in March. He did get 44% of the electoral vote in round three of the presidential election, so somebody was voting for him. But if his party does win in March, it will be based on votes, not administrative influence. In contrast, the SDPU(o) is hated by the people; it won't be able to win anyway.
This doesn't mean that Ukrainians will necessarily have pleasant choices to make when elections roll around, but they can trust that they live in a democracy, and the results will reflect their vote. If Yanukovych had won based on fraud, then their democratic powers would have been strongly curtailed.
- Actual Freedom of Speech: There are no more temnyky. You hear again and again, but I want to remind us what it was like before all these changes.
According to the OSCE: in the period they covered, about 43% of news was covered in such a similar manner across numerous sources that they believed those sources could only have been given the same guidelines to follow. This was verified by reporters standing up on Independence Square to renounce the temnyky guidelines they had been following. All major media sources were pro-government, with the exception of Channel 5, which had been shut down, or threatened with being shut down, three times over the course of the year. When they were shut down in October, the month of the first round of the election, they went on hunger strike to protest and gain enough attention to get put back on. They only made it back on the air just before the election.
My favorite fact from the OSCE, though, is its breakdown of the coverage on UT1, Ukraine's public television station, the equivalent of PBS or the BBC. That station gave 64% of its political and election prime time coverage to Yanukovych, and portrayed him positively or neutral 99% of the time. Yushchenko got 21% of its time, and 46% positive or neutral coverage. Some regional sources were even worse, with Zaporizhzhya state TV giving Yanu 100% of its coverage, and 100% either positive or neutral.
Now you have news stations that hate Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, ones that love them, and ones that are more measured in their attitudes; there are stations all over the map.
- Reduced Corruption: The Tymoshenko and Yushchenko people have slung accusations of corruption against one another, and invoked the Orange Revolution in the process. The government still can't carry out a high-profile court case in a respectable manner. And Poroshenko isn't out yet, despite voter opinion. The situation is still loads better than in 2004.
The rules and regulations governing entrepreneurial ventures have been drastically simplified. Tax dodging has shrunk considerably. The corrupt traffic police are gone. And when voters protested against poor regional officials, those officials generally didn't keep their jobs. Even Poroshenko has been demoted in the NSNU party (thanks for the link, LEvko!). He may not be out, but he's down.
Modest progress? Of course, very modest. But compare: Under Kuchma in 1998, Lazarenko was Prime Minister despite being the most hated man in the nation. He stole millions from the economy using his position during the negotiation of oil deals with Russia to do it. How has Poroshenko thusfar been able to use his position for personal advantage? Possibly something, but nobody really knows, and he's out of the government.
Kuchma gave away Krivoryzhstal to his son-in-law. The windfall money from the resale may not all go to voters, but it will certainly be better for the nation than the original sale. Kuchma was a president who based his government in corruption. Yanukovych was his successor, and gave no indication he would change that behavior until he lost the election. Now the way he's trying to get back into politics is by claiming he will fight the corruption in the current administration.
Corruption is on the agenda in a way in never was under Kuchma, and would not have been without the Orange Revolution.
These three items have lead to another benefit Ukrainians will get from the Orange Revolution.
A Parliamentary Election Based on Parties and Platforms
In 1994 there were dozens of possible parties to choose from, most of which appeared just before the election. In 1998, same problem, in 2002, same problem. Just before each election, a new group of deputies would come up with a new name for themselves and go to voters, who would have no idea what their underlying ideology would be. Were they liberal? conservative? free-market? state-control?
No one would be able to tell a thing about them, except, perhaps, for the sadly short-lived "Beer Lovers' Party". But in this Parliamentary election Ukrainians can count on access to a wider range of media sources, providing better information on candidates, with parties competing for their votes whose voting record they can see. And when they vote, they can be much more sure that it will be their votes that determine the winners.
That's worth celebrating.
For my part in the celebration, here's that old Yanukovych Egg Incident video. (6mb avi)
[Taras Kuzio has a list of accomplishments in the Eurasia Daily Monitor (problem areas coming tomorrow). I referenced his when making mine.]