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PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
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    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
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RECOMMENDED
  • Illiberalism and Public Opinion Junctures in Russia’s War on Ukraine

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  • We want the war to end. But should calls for negotiating with Putin be taken seriously?

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  • Policy Briefs | BEAR Network-PONARS Eurasia Conference

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RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
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  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
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  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
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  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
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    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Ukraine’s Election: Hope and Concern

  • October 26, 2014
  • Henry Hale

Looking at the exit polls and preliminary results released just after the Ukrainian parliamentary elections ended today, at least two developments stand out, one hopeful and one worrisome.

First, the hopeful. The Poroshenko Bloc, the force most directly supporting the incumbent president, received under a quarter of the party-list vote, with the party chaired by incumbent Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk (Popular Front) receiving nearly the same share of the vote.

While some might worry about the president’s failing to secure a large personal delegation to back him in the parliament, this actually augurs well for Ukrainian democracy. As I argue in a new book, one of the greatest challenges to democracy in the post-Soviet context has come from directly elected presidents who have usurped power from parliament and government, sometimes for the sake of implementing what they have seen as needed reforms and sometimes for the sake of power (or the financial payoffs from it).

If the exit polls stand up, and if the Poroshenko Bloc does not win a stunning landslide in the district elections for which we do not yet know the results, the Ukrainian parliamentary election means that the president will not likely be in a position to firmly control the Rada personally. And this is very important under Ukraine’s current “divided-executive” constitution, by which the parliament determines the governing coalition and, accordingly, decides who is the prime minister and who occupies many other posts.

This means that any attempt by the president to usurp parliamentary powers will likely face significant resistance from these officials and the Rada parties. Moreover, the governing coalition will likely involve the coming together of a range of distinct political forces in Ukraine, not just those in the president’s inner circle or those who struck the most timely early deals with it, winding up on the president’s party list.

The danger, of course, is gridlock, the kind of permanent fighting between president and prime minister that plagued Ukraine after the Orange Revolution until Ukrainians, fed up, finally voted Viktor Yanukovych into power in 2010.

But whether this sad history is repeated depends on the politicians who occupy these key posts now that Ukraine’s national election cycle is over. Those who hope the best for Ukraine should hope that its leaders are willing to compromise with each other and govern together for the good of the country, foregoing the temptation to struggle for personal political or economic position.

The second, and more worrisome result, is that turnout was relatively low. Despite Ukraine’s very future as a state being at stake, preliminary results indicate that only barely over half cast a ballot. And it appears that many of the non-voters were from precisely those areas where opposition to incumbent authorities would be expected to be highest, including eastern and southern parts of the country.

Whatever the causes of the low turnout–threats from separatists, alienation from the political process, or a protest mood–this pattern suggests that the new government will need to be very careful not to overlook these people’s interests as it moves forward with policy lest it set the stage for major legitimacy problems and potentially a backlash later. These people must be shown the benefits of being in a united Ukraine.

The temptation for the winners will be to reward those who supported them. But the long run future of Ukraine may hinge more on how they treat the losers.

Henry E. Hale, George Washington University

October 26, 2014

Henry Hale
Website | + posts
Professor of Political Science and International Affairs; Co-director, Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES); Co-director, PONARS Eurasia

Affiliation

Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University

Links

The George Washington University (Bio)

Expertise

Political Regimes, Ethnic Politics, Federalism, Democratization, Political Parties, Politics of Post-Soviet Countries
  • Henry Hale
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/author/henry-hale/
    Would Putin’s Own People Punish Him for Invading Ukraine?
  • Henry Hale
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/author/henry-hale/
    Russia may be about to invade Ukraine. Russians don’t want it to.
  • Henry Hale
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/author/henry-hale/
    Putin Has Off-Ramps: Let’s Not Block Them
  • Henry Hale
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/author/henry-hale/
    Authoritarian Rallying as Reputational Cascade? Evidence from Putin’s Popularity Surge after Crimea
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  • Election
  • Hale
  • PONARS
  • Ukraine
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