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Russia Profile
October 20, 2009
A Rebel Without a Cause
Yatsenyuk’s Attempt to Take on the Image of a Lighter Version of Vladimir Putin Will Hardly Help Him Win the Ukrainian Presidential Election
By Graham Stack

Ukraine’s youthful Presidential Candidate Arseny Yatsenyuk is tailor-made to be a pro-Western leader, but his stagnating ratings show how weak this political constituency has become in Ukraine. Instead, all three leading contenders in the presidential election campaign that kicked off this week are making pro-Russian statements.

History repeats itself as farce, Karl Marx apparently said. The Ukrainian presidential hopeful, 35-year-old Arseny Yatsenyuk’s great historical moment may have come and gone on June 7, 2009. During a week boiling with rumors it seemed that the two largest parties in Ukraine’s unicameral parliament, the Rada, were preparing a grand coalition in order to achieve a constitutional majority and transform Ukraine into a parliamentary republic, abolishing direct presidential elections. The trigger: Yatsenyuk’s meteoric rise in opinion polls, from zero to over ten percent in the course of months. Extrapolating, neither leader of the two largest parliamentary parties, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc or the former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych of the Party of Regions, could be sure of winning the presidential elections the coming January. So they had apparently simply decided to call off the elections altogether, and divvy up power between them.

Yatsenyuk sprang into action. He called on the West to beware of the imminent creation of a Russian-backed “junta.” “If the coalition’s plans go ahead, Ukraine will return to the sphere of influence of a certain big country,” he warned, “and Ukraine will turn into a banana republic.” Calling the nascent coalition’s plans “an anti-constitutional conspiracy,” he said he would lead people out on the streets to fight them. Asked if there would be a second Orange Revolution, Yatsenyuk replied with “you will see it.”

By Sunday, June 7, however, it was all over. The “putsch attempt” has been debunked as just another Ukrainian political stunt. Viktor Yanukovych suddenly backed out of the negotiations, saying that he was alarmed by the anti-democratic nature of Tymoshenko’s suggestions. The episode left Yanukovych looking wily, and even a little democratic, Tymoshenko looking like she would stop at nothing to stay in power, and Yatsenyuk like a callow wannabe popular hero.

Yatsenyuk, with his perfect English, baby-face looks, superb credentials and squeaky clean image, is tailor-made to fit the role of a “pro-Western democratic candidate.” But it is a sign of the times that there is no demand for such in Ukraine today, making Yatsenyuk seem like a rebel without a cause.

From Ukraine’s Obama to Ukraine’s Medvedev

Launching his unofficial campaign in late 2008, Yatsenyuk tried to tap into the buzz surrounding the new U.S. President Barack Obama. The media picked up the “Ukraine’s Obama” jingle, and Yatsenyuk’s spinmeisters playfully disclaimed it, pointing out “significant differences:” “Obama uses a Blackberry, but Arseny prefers an iPhone.”

This strategy paid off in the first half of 2009, as Yatsenyuk’s ratings rose meteorically to around 13 percent, fractionally behind prime minister Tymoshenko. Yatsenyuk’s advance, however, was at the expense of democratic President Viktor Yushchenko, as he was winning over the latter’s residual pro-Orange constituency. As a result, Yushchenko’s own rating fell below the margin of error, with Gallup declaring him to be the most unpopular president in the history of polling. Conversely, as Yushchenko’s rating tended to zero, Yatsenyuk hit his ceiling of around 13 percent, which is still less than Tymoshenko.

Realizing that the post-Orange constituency was too small to get in the second round of the elections, let alone win it, Yatsenyuk was forced to change his tune and follow in Tymoshenko’s footsteps. The latter, formerly an iconic figure of the Orange Revolution, had already jettisoned her Orange ballast in 2008. In the course of one year, she spectacularly morphed from an anti-Russian, pro-NATO firebrand into a politician under investigation by the Ukrainian Security Services for acting against Ukraine’s national interest for the benefit of Russia. Not least, she refused to support Georgia in the August 2008 war with Russia over South Ossetia.

To compete with Tymoshenko, Yatsenyuk then likewise discarded the “Ukraine’s Obama” mask. Instead, he donned what Andrew Wilson of the European Council of Foreign Relations called the image of “Putin-lite,” to capitalize on the Russian prime minister’s sky-high approval ratings in Ukraine. Instead of railing Orange-style against juntas and authoritarianism, Yatsenyuk switched to declaring war on corruption, using hard-man talk of filling the jails and cutting off hands. He also showed himself happy to speak Russian in public, supported the Russian stance over gas transport, and praised Putin as “having saved his country.” “Putin-lite” is also reminiscent of Dmitry Medvedev, who enjoys a high level of approval in Ukraine, has declared war on corruption, is young and has a background in law, like Yatsenyuk.

But Yatsenyuk is not the only one trying to tap into the buzz surrounding Putin and Medvedev. The polls’ frontrunner, Viktor Yanukovych, has the best pro-Russian credentials, although he is hardly a Putinesque figure. Yulia Tymoshenko can match Putin for charisma, and has been hard at it, with Putin/Medvedev-like phrases, such as “dictatorship of the law” and “legal nihilism” tripping off her tongue, along with Putin-style promises to restore Ukraine’s Soviet-era high-tech aerospace and ship-building sectors. Tymoshenko’s eagerness to be seen in public around Vladimir Putin went so far that the Russian prime minister cancelled a meeting with her in early October to avoid giving the impression that he is favoring her in the elections.

This means that switching to “Ukraine’s Medvedev” has not brought Yatsenyuk the anticipated breakthrough in the polls. The latest ratings have seen him fall back to around ten percent, and his chances of getting into the second round of elections ahead of Tymoshenko are fading.

But the fascinating result of Yatsenyuk’s switch to “Putin-lite” is that the leading three candidates in Ukraine’s crucial presidential elections are now all actively campaigning on their lack of hostility toward Russia, and their current order in the ratings corresponds to the respective plausibility of this platform.

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