Ukraine’s politicians have now spent almost six weeks engaged in post-election chair-trading and under-the-table dealing. Meanwhile, the country remains without a new government and seemingly no closer to resolving the political deadlock that has cast a shadow over the past half year.
At first glance this maddening situation would appear more than sufficient to undermine the positive impact created by Ukraine’s third straight democratic election campaign. Certainly this tendency to engage in endless secret negotiations is at odds with the very ethos of the electoral process and stands in stark contrast to the enormous strides the national media and electorate have made in three short years as a functioning democracy.
It comes as no surprise, then, to note that the voting public is fast losing interest in this charade amid fading hopes for some trustworthy leadership.
However, amid all the moans and groans there is at least one man who will confirm that the power of the Ukrainian electorate is not to be underestimated. I am referring to Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz.
The price of ideological gymnastics
After years as one of the Ukrainian parliament’s mainstays, the Socialist Party failed to pass the 3% mark in the recent election, largely due to the changing public perceptions of party leader Moroz. Here is a man who, until his remarkable decision to join a Yanukovych-led coalition in summer 2006, had been widely regarded as the honest broker of Ukrainian politics and a man of rare moral integrity. All that changed dramatically one summer evening when a shocked nation learned that the Socialist Party leader had agreed to abandon the Orange coalition and join forces with his erstwhile ideological enemies.
As a result of this dramatic turn of events, Moroz spent the best part of the past year denying that he had betrayed the ideals of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution and defending himself against the inevitable Judas tags, but despite all his efforts the electorate passed judgment on September 30, choosing to desert him in droves and leave the former parliamentary speaker outside of the legislature for the first time since its inception.
The grand old man of Ukrainian politics has been cast aside because he was unable to gauge the mood of the electorate, or thought that it was a matter of relative indifference.
The modern-day fable of Moroz
The lesson of Moroz will surely have made an impact on those lucky enough to have secured membership to the coming session of Ukraine’s most exclusive club. Anyone who is in the future tempted to follow in his footsteps by ignoring the will of their electorate will be all too aware that they also risk sharing his fate. That, after all, is how a democracy is supposed to function. Only a dark miracle could now rescue Moroz from political oblivion, and as he looks into the abyss it is hard to feel much sympathy for the man who switched sides at a time when he was so widely respected.
