Ukraine’s Corrupt Decline

Ukraine’s President Leonid Kuchma figures prominently on the Committee to Protect Journalists’ list of the top 10 enemies of the press. He deserves the dishonor. Kuchma kicked off his bid for reelection by shutting down or muzzling media that have not supported him for the Oct. 31 balloting. Harassment of his opponents and an attempt to assassinate one of his leading rivals have further marred the campaign. Kuchma is so unpopular he may yet lose, even though his political apparatus is doing its best to rig the vote.

Little has gone right with this second largest European country since it split off from the Soviet Union in 1991. Its economy hit the skids then and it is still sliding.

Kuchma, first elected in 1994, made some attempt to carry out economic reforms, but ended up creating a powerful group of oligarchs who got rich stripping the assets of state and privatized companies. They have banded together with Kuchma and his cabinet to form an impenetrable circle controlling the government and the economy. As one Western observer put it, “there is no politics in Ukraine; there is only palace intrigue.”

The Clinton administration rightfully credited Kuchma for dismantling Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal. And Western governments are grateful to him for his consent to NATO’s expansion right up to Ukraine’s border. But both Washington and the European capitals have turned a blind eye to Kuchma’s political and economic misdeeds. Kuchma has made democracy and market economics in Ukraine synonymous with corruption and lawlessness. That makes selling reforms to the public increasingly difficult.

The president has used all the tools of autocrats to win reelection. He has closed rival candidates’ access to state media and, through punitive levies and intimidation, silenced much of the independent press.

Opposition candidates get public exposure largely by financing their own partisan media outlets. On Oct. 2, hand grenades were lobbed into a political rally for Natalia Vitrenko, a firebrand nationalist advocating Ukraine’s return to Communism, injuring her and 33 others. Within hours, Kuchma pinned the blame on another front-runner, a more moderate Social Democrat, Olexander Moroz. Few in Ukraine doubt, however, that the attack was carried out by Kuchma’s camp.

A recent report by members of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly delivered a stinging verdict against Kuchma’s practices and called for his condemnation. But that doesn’t go far enough. The Council, which serves as the guardian of human rights in Europe, should either suspend Ukraine’s membership or expel the country altogether. After all, Ukraine was admitted into the Council on the promise that it would develop into a representative democracy. Instead, Ukraine remains a country with no judicial system in place, governed by oligarchs having little regard for the rule of law.

Washington, too, should step up pressure on Kuchma to mend his ways. A corrupt Ukraine governed by him or a far-left nationalist will not be a reliable ally to the West.