| A normal person cannot rejoice at what is happening in Ukraine: the split of a neighboring country with which we are connected by thousands of threads. The inability of the authorities to hold democratic elections in such a way that their results could not be questioned is not a one-time event that was disrupted, it was a manifestation of a long-term inability to rule honestly, prevent corruption, and earn the trust of the people. What the government was all these years, how the population saw it, is how they evaluate the elections organized by it. Even if they agree to hold repeat elections, the people of Ukraine will not believe in their honesty. Half of the country will not recognize the results of elections, already held or repeated, if the announced result is not what this half of the population wants.
The situation may change if both presidential contenders withdraw their candidacies. Elections will be held again with different politicians. Their result, perhaps, will become an acceptable compromise for voters, the authorities in Ukraine will be able to take a break, people will calm down and will try to soberly assess ways to overcome the split in Ukraine. The revolutionary frenzy, impulse, storm and stress will pass, but the problems will remain.
Russian politicians are also in too much of a hurry to announce their conclusions about the causes of the Ukrainian events. Surprisingly, the most extreme political opponents are equally happy about their development. Nationalists, of whom there are many today both in power and in the State Duma, point out that the Ukrainian scenario is a conspiracy of the West in general and the United States in particular against Russia. They are frightening us with the prospect of repeating the same scenario in Russia in 2008. The question is asked: maybe these elections in 2008 should be canceled altogether if they create the danger of a “foreign conspiracy”?
Radical democrats also bought into the false narrative, identifying Mr. Yushchenko with liberal ideals. His movement is assessed as democratic, pro-European. Without noticing, however, the active role in it of the same kind of corrupt officials as in the movement of the supposedly pro-Russian Mr. Yanukovych. What is worth just one figure of the “gas queen” Yulia Tymoshenko, the organizer of the famous mutual offsets, “supplies” of Ukrainian goods for Russian gas, the very operations from which the funds were apparently laundered by Mr. Lazarenko (Pavel Lazarenko is the former Prime Minister of Ukraine . - Ed. ), sitting in prison in the USA. She has already driven one of her patrons to prison, a second, Kuchma, may be preparing for the same fate, a third, Yushchenko...
The truth, and quite simple, is that the people of Ukraine are tired of the corrupt rule of all this new Ukrainian “elite”. Fair elections should be preceded by Operation Clean Hands, designed to renew the government and force it to implement the laws it has approved. The texts of these laws themselves, copied from democratic models, are not bad at all.
Kuchma did not want and could not provide this, and both current candidates for the presidency of Ukraine will not be able and will not want to do this.
This cleansing of power in Ukraine, a European country with a population of 50 million, is beneficial to both Russia and Europe. It is equally unprofitable for both Russia and Europe to have the dominance of its current corrupt elite.
This is the main lesson for Russia itself. Our task is not to look for pseudo-allies like Kuchma or Lukashenko. The example of the Belarusian regime, beloved by our pseudo-patriots and nationalists, clearly proves that such people have only selfish, personal interests behind the words about “centuries-long friendship with Russia”. To ensure that in 2008 we do not have the basis for the same turmoil that is engulfing Ukraine today, we need our own Operation Clean Hands, and not a search for mythical CIA conspirators. Our government must also be renewed and cleansed of corruption.
At the same time, before it is too late, this must be done within the framework of the Constitution and the law, in a democratic way. Otherwise, as in Ukraine, both the government and the Constitution may be called into question. Democrats in Russia must also understand that, as in Ukraine, this popular need for renewal can be saddled either by some groups of the same corrupt officials, or by security forces in the power structure itself. Chaos and corruption must be eliminated at the request of the people, but if the democrats do not propose how to do this democratically, this fight will become the slogan of authoritarian forces to roll back democracy.
Only in this way, by becoming the leader of the renewal of power, by becoming the leader of rapprochement with European legal and political orders, will Russia be able to win for itself the role of leader in the post-Soviet space. Russia's allies will then be our brotherly nations, and not those corrupt officials who are equally easy to seduce by trade in Russian gas and Western loans.
And Messrs. Yushchenko and Yanukovych must go. Both. Sergey Dubinin
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