Identifying who are the true democrats – Democracy Ukraine

Having just spent the afternoon in a very nice restaurant in Odessa with a  Ukrainian politician – and witnessed the march past of a very vocal and lively anti-government protest by local Krygs against the government of Kyrgyzstan in Bishkek – the conversation turned to democracy and how best to support it within from without.

The question asked of me I presume, as somebody from without now living permanently within – rather than any urge of this politician to support from without any democratic notions within Kyrgyzstan.

Now there are truly numerous ways to support democracy within a nation from without, be it expertise or financial aid (or both) to the State apparatus, to civil society or to political parties themselves, or through development agencies with projects on the ground, the use of regional architecture such as the EU or OSCE – the list goes on and on to be honest.

However, blindly throwing money, time and expertise at supporting democracy has a very real risk of wasting these resources.  There is of course, a risk that such resources will be misused by the corrupt and insincere if these efforts are channeled through government that only purports to have the political will to carry out reforms.  There is a risk of looking to “western-orientated” NGOs for reasons of language or location within a nation rather than finding more “authentic and genuine” civil society actors in the provinces speaking only provincial language.  There is the risk that with money and expertise to farm out, the donor will approach the recipient rather than the other way around leading to a legitimacy crisis on the ground in some cases.

All very serious issues when thinking about democratic assistance to democratic agents in foreign lands – particularly when elections (whatever their genuine democratic worth in any particular nation) are on the horizon.

How close to any election can any external democratic assistance be given to the democratic parties before it is seen by both incumbent government and large parts of society as intervention rather than democratic assistance?  There is an obvious and extremely fine line between assisting democracy and democratic parties and being seen as intervening and “picking a winner” from without.

This is assuming that those without can actually identify any genuine democratic actors to support – rather than those who are opportunistic and thus semi-loyal to the idea of democracy, or those that are simply not democratic whatsoever other than having the word “democratic” attached to themselves or party when officially registering the party name.

It can hardly be claimed that Kravchuk, Kuchma, Yushenko, Tymoshenko or Yanukovych are (or were) truly and genuinely democrats.  They may like the idea – but only so long as it serves their purpose at the time.

Kravchuk had democracy dumped in his lap when the USSR imploded.

Kuchma used dominant party politics during his term which failed to be continued as expected only due to the 2004/5 mass mobilisation of the Ukrainian public.

Yushenko continually interfered with the rule of law and most infamously with the constitutional courts to the point where the Council of Europe wrote to him in 2007 pointedly highlighting such an erroneous path – which he subsequently ignored.

Tymoshenko was and is known as an autocrat amongst most of her party and throughout the Ukrainian based foreign diplomatic community – which is hardly surprising when empirically and historically no political party or political faction that has born the name of any specific individual has ever produced anything other than an autocrat when they got into power.  What else could “Block Yulia Tymoshenko” have been other than a vehicle for the personalisation of power for Yulia Tymoshenko?

Yanukovych is seemingly attempting to return to the dominant party politics of the Kuchma era whilst brazenly reinforcing patron-client relationships on an almost daily basis.  Thus far it appears nobody within the Party of Regions is intent on reigning him in and eventually it may reach a stage where he becomes stronger than his party – no different to the inability of Batkivshchyna or Block Yulia Tymoshenko to control her.

This ably assisted, unfortunately, by a “United Opposition” that is neither “united” nor genuinely democratic across its tri-party make-up.  It is no surprise that the European Parliament has made repeated calls for the United Opposition to jettison Svoboda from its line-up, as extreme nationalist politics is by nature exclusive rather than inclusive and thus is not going to result in a full-blooded, liberal and inclusive democracy.

Who were and are the genuine democrats to support amongst these people?

Now there will be – and there are – those within both the current opposition and current majority that are genuinely up for the democratic leap despite the probable losses to themselves personally in doing so.  But, is it wise to support any specific actor, as that again can be seen as foreign intervention and “picking a winner” which may do more harm than good for that individual’s chances on polling day.

Are any of these truly democratic actors capable of garnering mass public support, or in supporting them would it be a case of futility by way of supporting a lost cause?  Even if there is such an actor, is the continued personalisation of politics what Ukraine needs?

So what to support?  The answer has to be the principles and processes of democracy in isolation from individual actors – especially and particularly so when elections sit just over the horizon.  The question then, is how to effectively and consistently support the principles and processes of democracy whilst insuring maximum impact in a somewhat hostile/insincere environment – especially and particularly during election time?

That question and the answers will have to await another sunny afternoon in another nice Odessa restaurant with the same company – and I fear it is my turn to pay next time!

(And yes, of course it does actually help when it comes to the legitimacy of any foreign donor purporting to support the principles and processes of democracy to have their own house in order and walk their own talk – before I get the usual, inevitable, expected – and yes warranted – comments about the EU and Member States.)

I’m having a week off!

Having written almost daily for the past 5 years, I feel it is time to have a week off – partly because of circumstances beyond my control, due to my participation in  a discussion of the “Dark Side of Civil Society” – and yes there is a dark side (at least potentially in some cases, actual in others) – and partly because I need to temporarily severe the umbilical chord between the computer and myself just to prove to myself that I can.

After all, nothing truly unexpected or even remotely surprising is likely to come by way of effective policy or political movement from the feckless Ukrainian political class between now an 5th or 6th May when I shall reconnect my umbilical hardware and carry on where I left off.

Thus – I hope – there will be little by way of blogging, twitter or other social media from me for the next 7 days.

Ukrainian civil society and the media – A bit of a mess

Not for the first time I turn my eye to Ukrainian civil society – in particular the issue of a perceived need for a specific law guaranteeing the right to peaceful assembly and protest (which is indeed guaranteed by the Constitution).

Regular readers will know, so many times have I written about Ukrainian civil society that if I were to link to each entry there would be dozens of links in this entry.  For those who don’t want to enter “Civil Society” in the search facility of this blog and be faced by the numerous entries that will be listed, a suitably median sample of my thoughts on Ukrainian civil society can be found here.

Naturally the problems listed in that link – and others in many other entries – continue to exist within Ukrainian civil society.

Excluding the Orthodox Church as a civil society actor, civil society still operates with about 5% of the Ukrainian populous taking part – an almost static percentage since 1991 and Ukrainian independence.

Ukraine still has far less civil society actors per capita than the vast majority of Europe – something that is hardly surprising considering civil society’s inability to capture and expand public participation over the past 22 years.

Thus civil society remains further away from the society it purports to represent than the political class does both in overall presence by way of meeting the public face to face frequently (if at all) and also by self-projection via the media to the public.  A few clever lines and quotations on Interfax Ukraine or a brief appearance on Inter or Kanal 5 television channels etc, are not likely – and have actually proven not to – increase the Ukrainian public participation in civil society.

It is seen – and acts like – an elitist bubble serving either its own, or its financial donors interests first and foremost – both reasons not endearing to a cynical and distrustful Ukrainian public.  An image not helped in any way by the clever thinking, quotations and TV appearances coming across as an “adult to child” lecture to the population, rather than the “adult to adult” conversation it necessarily needs to be when purporting to represent society over issues the political class demonstratively fails to respond to.

In short, the visibility of civil society in every day Ukrainian life for almost all 46 million Ukrainians is practically zero – I don’t even remember the last time I saw a civil society actor raising awareness of its existence or cause in the streets, let alone engaging in something as basic as face to face public opinion surveys in relation to support – or not – for its cause.

To the contrary, walk along any high street in the UK and you can expect to be accosted by Help the Aged, Amnesty International or any number of international, national or local civil society actors.

However, this is not the issue I raise today.  I have historically written that NGOs and civil society actors will often turn on each other – for various reasons.

This may be because they are a pseudo-NGO that is in fact a government sponsored entity thrown into the civil society mix in order to back the government line and therefore give the government line some form of civil society credibility, or they have simply allowed themselves to become too close to government to advance their cause (even glacially) to the point they deem it necessary to attack other civil society actors who may begin to gain the government ear to which they have become accustomed, or simply to rubbish competitors in the fight for funding.

With this in mind, one wonders what is going on here, why, to what end and who is ultimately behind it?

This statement in relation to human rights and freedom of peaceful assembly legislation may actually be correct in its content relating to the options on the legislative table – “According to UHHRU, best of all meeting these standards is the bill supported by the Coordination Council for the Development of Civil Society under the President of Ukraine. The Union believes that it may serve as a basis for the successful achievement of the purpose set by human rights activists.“

Just because it comes from the presidential circles doesn’t make it necessarily bad or something to rally against simply because of the legislative origin.  Good policy and good legislation is just that – whether it comes from the presidential administration, parliamentary majority or parliamentary minority.

And yet this statement follows – “UHHRU called on civil society organizations and activists to stop manipulating its position in relation to the law on freedom of peaceful assembly, and on the media and journalists to take into account that the statements of the initiative For Peaceful Protest have nothing in common with the position of UHHRU.“

Which is worse?  A fellow civil society actor with similar goals manipulating the UHHRU position – or the media who seemingly (and unfortunately regularly) are muddying the waters with slip-shod reporting, rather than helping set public opinion by accurately reporting the different and definitive positions of the civil society actors involved?

For me, the media come out of that statement far worse than any competing civil society actor.

As ineffective as civil society in Ukraine generally is, whatever individual actors do say, should at the very least be accurately reported and their positions clearly identified if the media is to fulfill its role in framing public opinion and debate.

Thus, not only is the Ukrainian opposition in a mess as far as lack of policy, leadership etc. is concerned, civil society which would be the next vanguard against any government running amok is seemingly intent not only upon remaining out of touch with society itself, but also engaging in infighting.

A situation nicely topped of with a slipshod 4th estate incapable of reporting on “independent” civil society actors accurately.

Amongst all this, due to the circus now surrounding it, I have almost forgotten about the freedom of assembly legislation and the inherent human rights/liberties issues that should be the only story.

Did you?

The Rome Statute – Again

Not that long ago I wrote about the Rome Statute and the fact that Ukraine, whilst a signatory, was not a ratified signatory due to a 2001 Constitutional Court ruling.  My entry is also here in Russian.

In fact my ruminations made it to publication on the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC) website also – Blimey!

I have since mentioned the Rome Statute in an entry relating to the Constitutional Assembly and their first submissions to the Venice Commission – pondering the probabilities that any such amendments may facilitate the eventual ratification of the Rome Statute by Ukraine.

What I have not mentioned since my very first entry on the subject is the CICC NGO itself – despite telephone conversations and emails between Kristen Meersschaert Duchens, the Regional Coordinator for Europe, and myself.

Naturally the CICC has not sat idly in The Hague whilst I have failed to mention them since.

That said, I have deliberately not mentioned them in order to keep their “powder dry” for a long planned campaign to influence Ukraine which starts now – beginning with the expected letter to the head of state and press releases etc.  All of this is likely to culminate in personal lobbying by CICC people at very lofty Ukrainian political heights within the next 8 weeks or so, which hopefully will coincide with the return of the Venice Commission’s words of wisdom in relation to the first proposed constitutional changes by the Ukrainian Constitutional Assembly.

So, whilst this is likely to be a rather slow battle for ratification, largely due to the constitutional ruling of 2001 and the need for constitutional amendments that may or may not be within the Constitutional Assembly’s recommendations currently under the wise noses of those within the Venice Commission, it is a battle that can eventually be won – particularly if Ukrainian good will regarding pro-EU normative legislative momentum can continue after the Vilnius Summit (regardless of its signing or not), and not be slowed by the external forces of European Parliament elections or Ukrainian elections over the next 2 years.

Now Ukraine has been targeted, every thing depends on momentum, even if that momentum ends up seemingly glacial – for glacial is far better than stationary!

US Aid 2014 and Ukrainian Feckless Plurality

It seems amongst a total of approximately $88.5 million allocated by the US to aid Ukraine in 2014, $54 million of that is to support democracy and reform.

To quote the US Department of State:

“U.S. assistance [of $54 million to Ukraine] aims to promote the development of a democratic, prosperous, and secure Ukraine, fully integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community as it struggles to overcome the effects of the global financial crisis and worsening backsliding on democratic reform,” according to the Department of State’s FY 2014 Executive Budget Summary.

The Department of State, in particular, noted that funding would strengthen democratic institutions and processes, and accountable governance, support civil society, independent media, judicial reform, and anti-corruption efforts, improve conditions for investment and economic growth, improve energy security, and help bring the damaged Chornobyl nuclear facility to an environmentally safe and stable condition and properly store its nuclear waste.

 These funds belong to the so-called Economic Support Fund, which the U.S. uses to advance its interests by helping countries “meet short- and long-term political, economic, and security needs.” 

A big ask indeed.  If all that could be achieved on such funding in Ukraine, the promotion of democracy globally would cost no more than a few dozen drones.

Of course it cannot be achieved on such funding and nobody expects it to be achieved – even with all the pooled funding numerous global actors provide relating to these areas of Ukrainian “democratic development”.  The end game of a consolidated democracy in Ukraine – both vertically and horizontally – is not much closer than it was in 1991 when independence was rudely dumped into the lamp of Ukraine.

If we are to stick to the scholarly terms of “opening” – where democratic opportunity appears and gives chance to replace a previous non-democratic regime, or “breakthrough” where democracy actually replaces the old governance system – often rapidly and normally on that back of a new legal foundation (Constitutions), and lastly “consolidation” whereby the state institutions, civil society, judiciary and all other horizontal democratic institutions are reformed, together with vertical of regular elections and the habitual recognition by society of the rules of democracy, it is quite clear that no democratically elected Ukrainian government has ever got anywhere near achieving the consolidation of democracy – particularly so when it comes to the horizontal.

What Ukraine does have is a rather hollow – or lacking – horizontal which needs to be addressed with far more political will and effort than the issues with the vertical at this moment in time.  Whilst laws addressing these issues may now be getting written, they will be useless unless implemented and monitored both fairly and consistently by an independent and competitive horizontal.

There are few Ukrainian politicians past or present, who would not classify as being part of a rather nicely named scholarly group of “feckless pluralists” – and “feckless pluralism” is certainly where Ukraine would find itself seated in most academics eyes by way of theory definition over the past decade.

Those few which do not would generally fall into the category of “feckless pluralists” would fall into the category  “dominant power” politics whereby the State and the leader/ruling party become almost indistinguishable rather than necessarily clearly defined.  Ex-President Kuchma would probably be the closest to a Ukrainian period where “dominant power” politics prevailed in the 1990s.

Sticking rigidly to scholarly definition, President Yanukovych, despite prima facie efforts to move back towards “dominant power” politics would not manage to fully meet all the necessary theoretical determining markers – Thus it is with a wry smile that I write that he currently remains “feckless”, and with all the other politicians of Ukraine, is  engaged in the “feckless pluralism”.

The definition which so encapsulates Ukrainian politics:

“Countries whose political life is marked by feckless pluralism tend to have significant amounts of political freedom, regular elections, and alternation of power between genuinely different political groupings. Despite these positive features, however, democracy remains shallow and troubled. Political participation, though broad at election time, extends little beyond voting.  Political elites from all the major parties or groupings are widely perceived as corrupt, self-interested, and ineffective. The alternation of power seems only to trade the country’s problems back and forth from one hapless side to the other. Political elites from all the major parties are widely perceived as corrupt, self-interested, dishonest, and not serious about working for their country. The public is seriously disaffected from politics, and while it may still cling to a belief in the ideal of democracy, it is extremely unhappy about the political life of the country.”  Thomas Carothers - End of the Transitional Paradigim, 2002.

What part of feckless pluralism doesn’t fit the Ukrainian political class from 2005 – present?

I doubt Yanukovych will manage to complete a move back to the “dominant power” politics of Kuchma due to internal and external pressure and economic realities, and thus Ukraine swings as a pendulum between absolute fecklessness and fecklessness with a dominant streak – none of which provides anything more than a hollow democracy of sorts, and provides leadership past and present that has not or is not overly interested in, or capable of, moving Ukraine entirely into the solid territory of a consolidated democracy.  All have, or will have a democratic legacy deficit rather than a positive democratic legacy to draw upon when times are hard and democracy is deemed to be failing rather than producing the results society expects.

So it is with more than a little pessimism that I look at the latest US funding announcement when it comes to Ukrainian political Dollar deliverables.

That is not to say that either feckless pluralism or dominant politics cannot move to establish a consolidated democracy – but it takes sustained political will, with oft hard and unpopular work to accomplish – not US$ or Euro when all is said and done.

An anti-corruption NGO of former spies? (Lustration)

Lustration – to purify by means of ceremony.

That is the proposed name for an embryonic new NGO composed of former Ukrainian intelligence personnel whose aim will be to fight corruption.

This NGO will be headed by retired Colonel Petro Nedzelsky, once of the General Intelligence Department of Ukraine.

“We want to create an organization to fight corruption. No one can do that better than we, the officers.  Fighting corruption is the main function. If we get information about corruption, we will assist the relevant government agencies in fighting this evil.”

Well it will be interesting to see how they do – and more specifically who within society and the State apparatus they target – or not.

Will it concentrate on the democratic horizontal or the democratic vertical?

The answer, as is so often the case with civil society, will probably be found in the vested interests of those who ultimately fund this NGO.

Open Government – Ukraine

Much has been written about open government.  The Internet is full of content on the subject.  Some with easy access and other behind academic walls of one sort of another.

Ukraine has embarked upon the road to open government apparently.  In fact it is quite active.  Of course we should not confuse active with effective.

The UNDP article on Ukraine in the above link, is actually very link heavy – which is why this entry won’t be.

Suffice to say the Ukrainian plan does not reinvent the wheel – quite rightly.

It sticks to the core and most simplistic methods of insuring some form of open government:

Engaging civil society in state policy-making
Promoting access to public information
Preventing and combating corruption
Promoting good governance through improving administrative services and introducing e-government

Anyway, read the UNDP report.  Some interesting stuff in there, and what appears to be some genuine (if limited) effort from the government too – at least so far.

Attempts to legalise prostitution and the effect of human trafficking

Well, this entry is likely to get a lot of reading over the coming months – not because of ruminations it contains, but because it will contain those SEO magnetic key words of Ukraine, women, prostitution, sex, escorts and the like.

One look at my blog statistics and it is clear to see that many posts, some years old, are still frequently read because the search engines will bring them to the attention of those seeking fun and frolics, sexual adventures, girlfriends, wives etc from Ukraine – I cannot vet my readership, and to be fair, there will be some historical entries here that may be of some use to those seeking such things.

This entry may or may not fall into that category – but it is not my intention to glorify or undermine the sex industry, whether that which exists within Ukraine or that without that effects Ukraine.  Working with an Odessa NGO that deals with domestic violence, prostitution, human trafficking etc – and having worked for 8 years within the drugs and prostitution agencies in the UK – regardless of whichever side of the “moral line” you sit on regarding the sex industry, the reality is that it exists, has always existed and always will.

The issue for governments, society, NGOs and those employed illegally within that industry, is how to deal with it.

In some nations, prostitution is illegal – it is that simple.  In others it is legal.  In many it sits in a grey area where parts of it are legal and others illegal.  In some nations, a prostitute (or two) can work from a domestic dwelling selling sex and remain within the law.  Three working from that dwelling then makes it a brothel – and thus illegal.  In other nations, brothels are legal, taxed and employees subject to regular medical checks.

Then there are the massage parlours, visiting masseuses, escorts, gentleman’s clubs, entertainment centres et al, which whilst offering services within the law, also infer (correctly) that services outside the law are also available.

All rather complex shades of legal right and wrong – and no degree of legality or otherwise seems to have much effect on those trafficked to nations to enter the sex trade.

As much as I intensely dislike generalisations, it would be fair to say that in Asia most human trafficking has more to do with forced labour than sex.  Across Europe it is the other way around, with more human trafficking aimed towards the sex trade than slave labour.

Ukraine is not only a source of pretty women and children for trafficking into the sex industry, but also a trafficking route of some significants.

It is with interest then, that I note a third attempt is under way within the Czech Republic to legalise prostitution and brothels.

You can understand that through legalisation there is probably not only a significant revenue from taxation to collect, but also some form of inferred additional safety for those currently having to hide what they do from the authorities – not to mention a significant chance to reduce sexually transmitted disease – if handled correctly.

It is unlikely however, to reduce the amount of human trafficking through and from Ukraine to the Czech Republic.  I have yet to see any academic study that has shown a significant reduction in human trafficking to Germany or The Netherlands where prostitution and brothels are legal.  Women are still trafficked there for the sex trade in fairly significant numbers.

Also it has to be said, that more legal places to work as a prostitute outside Ukraine has little effect in the internal trafficking of women to the major cities from the provinces by the criminal elements.

What I have noticed over my (now many) years here, is that more women are working for themselves in Ukraine and are advertising their services for free on social media sites such as VK or Mamba.

For how long that keeps them free from the clutches of criminal underworld, or if indeed this modem operandi keeps them any safer, well, I can find no Ukrainian statistics on the issue – despite working with a Ukrainian NGO of 15 years standing in this arena.  However I do know self-employed prostitutes and escorts who only use these sites to advertise their services – thus there must be some benefit to working this way and avoiding not only the law enforcement agencies but also the criminal underworld – if nothing other than for a little longer than would otherwise be the case.

That said of course, statistics on prostitution where it is illegal, and human trafficking,  is naturally far harder to gauge.  Much has to be based upon guess-work no differently that estimating the size of the black economy in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, it is interesting that the Czech Republic will, for the third time, try to legalise prostitution very soon, as if there are any semi-reliable statistics for human trafficking relating specifically to the Czech Republic and the sex trade, then if legalisation is successful, it should be possible to note any increase or decrease in trafficking rates as a result.

One hopes that somebody will have the sense to try and assess any such outcomes.