Yanukovych’s opportunity

Achieving political stability is crucial but not easy. As long as Yulia Tymoshenko refuses to resign, it may prove difficult to remove her from power. Calling early parliamentary elections is constitutionally tricky, and to bring a vote of no confidence against Tymoshenko would involve the Party of the Regions (PoR) forming a majority in Parliament. It is not yet clear whether they could muster enough support for this. What sort of new government it would be is also interesting, given PoR is jam-packed with businessmen who seem to pursue their own interests. Furthermore, the tiny gap between Yanukovych and Tymoshenko gives Yanukovych a limited mandate -- he is the first Ukrainian president to be elected with less than 50 percent of the vote. He will need to make efforts to build consensus with his opponents if he is to have a real chance of political stability. The key to long-term stability remains constitutional reform. The changes following the Orange Revolution created a hybrid system, with overlapping of powers between the president and prime minister and a complicated structure between the executive and the legislature. Until now Ukraine’s political elites have demonstrated a lack of political will to address the issue. Therefore, the ongoing constitutional confusion makes long-term stability difficult.

Yanukovych has pledged to carry out a balanced relationship with the West and Russia although he is regularly still labeled a “Kremlin stooge.” It would be a mistake to assume he will wholeheartedly embrace Moscow. While Yanukovych’s main electoral base remains the eastern and southeastern regions of Ukraine, it would be naive to believe that those regions are willing to embrace Moscow fully given that all of the business interests of the financial and industrial magnates in Ukraine’s eastern region are in the West. Many of Ukraine’s richest oligarchs, who built their fortunes in the metals and mining industry, do not want to have to compete with Russia in these sectors; therefore Yanukovych should try to keep the Russians out of this field. He will also have to prove that he is able to operate independently in his relations with big business -- and not be directed by those, for example, Dmytro Firtash, former boss of RosUkrEnergo, who heavily financed his campaign.

On issues such as the extension of the lease of the Black Sea fleet at Sevastopol beyond 2017, Yanukovych is likely to take a pragmatic approach, preferring to stay silent on the topic. And although he never formally withdrew his promise to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he has hardly talked about it since and is unlikely to shoot himself in the foot with the West by carrying out such a pointless action.

Contrary to election speak, it is unlikely that Yanukovych will move to change agreements reached with the European Union and Russia in 2009 on gas supplies and on the modernizing of the transit system, even though he stated that Ukraine was paying too much for Russian gas and should renegotiate the terms of the deal. Previous calls for sharing control of the Ukrainian system with Gazprom in return for discounted prices on Russian gas are also not likely to be pursued given this would involve making many difficult changes to Ukrainian law. Additionally with the development of the Nord Stream and South Stream pipelines, Moscow’s interest in Ukraine’s networks is not as obsessive as in the past, and in the long term, these two routes will circumnavigate Ukraine, bringing Russian gas directly to the EU market. The EU would also not welcome such a move to return to a “Soviet style” type of framework.

Yanukovych’s approach to the West may not be dissimilar to that of Leonid Kuchma, and he may revert to the “in between” game of playing the West and Russia off each other. The EU should send a strong message that it sees Yanukovych as being pro-European because in the long run, Ukraine’s relations with Moscow may be determined by how Europe approaches Yanukovych. The West should embrace him and not distance itself as they did Kuchma. And while EU membership remains off the table, the EU should use other tangible incentives to make progress and as recognition of Ukraine’s display of democracy. For example, the EU could push ahead on an issue close to the hearts of Ukrainians -- namely visa liberalization.