THIS SUNDAY'S parliamentary election in Ukraine shares at least one thing in common with next year's Presidential election in the United States. During overlong campaigns, in the parade of political personalities and the blizzard of distortions and half truths, it is nearly impossible to remember what either election is all about.
Although our candidates use the campaign to show off what they imagine to be their attractive qualities (toughness, trustworthiness, and often only good looks), the 2008 American election is about the foreign policy crisis which this country has entered. Basically, the average American is questioning his country's role and purpose in international politics. The war in Iraq is the proximate cause of this loss of national self-confidence, but the underlying question of what the United States should do and not do both at home and abroad has been simmering since the end of the Cold War.
In a nutshell, our Presidential debate is between those who think the United States is like Winston Churchill's England in 1940: beleaguered, but brave and fundamentally on the right side of history. And others who think the United States should come to resemble Sweden; well-adjusted, graciously multi-lateral, and content to spend more time at home. But you would never know that to listen to our candidates this year.
In Ukraine, it is even harder to identify what underlying question will be addressed in the upcoming election. Some of the confusion lies in the truly staggering amount of political shouting and personal vitriol which passes for campaigning in Ukraine, but the fact that the elections were triggered by presidential fiat and not by a constitutional schedule further confused the issue. And none of Ukraine's candidates have gone very far out of their way to explain to the voters how complex and difficult the challenges any government in Kiev will face are.
Various theories have been advanced to explain the prolonged political crisis in Ukraine, all of them at best partially true and most completely false. The original explanation was that Ukraine's frequent, indecisive elections were part of the process of building a Ukrainian nation. While there may be some superficial truth to the perception that people from Lvov, Odessa, and Dnipropetrovs'k are not overly fond of each other, everyone believes (even politicians) they are part of a Ukrainian nation and are fiercely patriotic.
About a year ago, a second theory appeared which held that the elections would be a decision on whether Ukraine would be a pro-Russian state or a pro-European state. This theory is demonstrably false and intentionally misleading. The culture and history that Ukraine shares with Russia is a matter of historical fact, and history cannot be rewritten by election or referendum. Similarly, the intimacy of Ukraine's relations with Europe is established by history, geography, and shared economic interest. Ukraine will always be close to and independent of both Russia and Europe, and there is nothing any of Ukraine's parties can do about it. We can be confident that this election is not about violating the iron laws of geopolitics.
The final theory and the one with the greatest following today is that this parliamentary election is about political stability, and there is some truth to this. We all hope that the next government of Ukraine can, well . . . govern. The government of Yulia Timoshenko performed poorly on the economy and was dismissed after only seven months. The government of Victor Yanukovich did better on the economy and joining the WTO, but failed to maintain the trust of its coalition partners and was also dismissed. Indeed so many ministers, judges, and parliaments have been dismissed since 2004, only Khmelnytskyy still holds his original position on St. Sofia Square.
Certainly, Sunday's election is about political stability, but stability is only a condition, not an objective. It seems to me that for the Ukrainian voter the choice of the next prime minister and the coalition that provides his government a political mandate is fundamentally a choice about Ukraine's economic future.
Ukraine is on the threshold of entering the World Trade Organization, which is the gateway to the global economy. Europe is prepared for the first time in at least a century to consider opening a free trade zone with Ukraine, something the European Union did with Turkey 40 years ago. Moving Ukraine into international markets and opening European markets for Ukrainian goods would make a far greater difference for the average family in Ukraine than the distant possibility of NATO membership or whether Ukraine's bureaucrats speak Ukrainian or Russian or both.
