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Ukraine’s Election Is a Mess—and That’s Exactly What Putin Wants
A chaotic campaign, feuding oligarchs, and
Russian disinformation efforts have combined to shake public faith in
the electoral process.
By
Justin Lynch|
A boy points at cardboard cutouts depicting Russian
President Vladimir Putin and presidential candidates Yulia Tymoshenko
and Oleksandr Shevchenko during a protest in Kiev on March 29. (Sergei
Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images)
KIEV, Ukraine—Eight days before Ukraine’s unpredictable
presidential elections, a mob of men wearing black coats huddled outside
of the Zhitnii Market in Kiev. Most in the crowd, a few hundred strong,
wore black hats and scarves to shield their identities. They silently
hovered to a corner of the Zhitnii Market—a hulking, Soviet-gray
structure—where a protest was taking place against Ukraine’s President
Petro Poroshenko, who is running for re-election. On one banner, a pig
that represented Poroshenko, one of the richest men in the country, was
being suckled by ministers and affluent Ukrainians. The smell of pig
shit wafted through the cold air. “In Ukraine there are no rules, everything is bad,” Victoria Bashlykova, one of the protest leaders, told me.
The pigs escaped. The cloaked men looked on with bleary-eyed
indifference, as if they had taken sleeping pills before the march. It
was the most unenthusiastic political protest I’d ever seen, but it made
sense after talking with the men with covered faces, who insinuated
that they were being paid to attend. A man in a small, black car pulled
up to the protest and rolled down his window—seconding the point.
“Everything is fake,” the man shouted. “This is a fake protest. I don’t trust it.” So goes election season in Ukraine, which will hold its first round
of voting in the upcoming presidential election on March 31, with an
expected runoff in late April. Only two of the three major
candidates—Poroshenko, the actor Volodymyr Zelensky, and former Prime
Minister Yulia Tymoshenko—will advance to the second round. It is
anyone’s guess who will move on. Ukraine is a case study of post-Soviet
transitions in a world of Putinism—a Kremlin that rejects globalization. Since Ukrainians took to the streets to overthrow the Russian-backed
leader Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, the country has become the front line
of the West’s new cold war with the Kremlin. Ukraine is considered
Russia’s biggest foreign policy priority, and Moscow-backed separatists
have sliced off two separate parts of this former Soviet appendage: the
Crimean Peninsula and a chunk of Eastern Ukraine. Three days before
election day there were reports
of mass armed searches and arrests targeting Crimean Tatars by Russian
authorities. But Western countries, led by the United States, have
poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Ukraine and sent advisors to
mentor the armed forces to stop the Russian advance. Ukraine is
flirting with NATO and European Union membership, which would
irrevocably alter both institutions. All of this means that Ukraine’s
elections are an inflection point for a country that is literally split
between East and West. But the presidential vote in Ukraine is shrouded
with mystery, much like the porcine protest at Zhitnii Market. The biggest risk to Ukraine’s vote is perception. Russia
may attempt to hack the preliminary, projected results that appear on
election day in an attempt to make Ukrainians doubt the final, verified
vote
Russia may attempt to hack the
preliminary, projected results that appear on election day in an attempt
to make Ukrainians doubt the final, verified vote
that comes out days later, experts and election officials say. The idea
is to torpedo trust in the winner in a cunning blitz of psychological
warfare. The polling places outside major cities are particularly at
risk of cyberattack, an election official, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity, told Foreign Policy.
“You don’t even need to change the result—just by messing with the
data, people will doubt the vote,” said Kenneth Geers, a fellow at the
Atlantic Council. “If having the Ukrainian vote lose legitimacy is your
goal, that would be a powerful way to do it,” he added.
At times, it feels like Russia will not have to do much to portray Ukraine’s election as chaotic. Allegations of vote buying, wiretapping, and oligarchs funding candidates have already fueled doubts. More than 80 percent of Ukrainians believe that the elections will be rigged
More than 80 percent of Ukrainians believe that the elections will be rigged
, one expert told a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty subsidiary. Even the United States has not been immune to the mudslinging.
Less than two weeks before election day, the country’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, alleged in an interview with the Hill that the U.S. ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, gave him a do-not-prosecute list in their first meeting. Lutsenko added
that he was investigating whether anyone in Ukraine’s government leaked
financial records about former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in
order to support Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run. (The State
Department did not respond to questions, but the embassy has previously
denied the story.) Although the story has zipped through the U.S. right–wing media, with the help of a tweet from
President Donald Trump, experts view it with skepticism. Lutsenko
offered no evidence to support his claim. Rather, it looks like an
attempt from Poroshenko, the president, to convince senior Trump
administration officials that he is an ally in case the elections are
disputed. The logic is bizarre but relies on senior Trump administration
officials backing Poroshenko because of his interest in investigating
the Manafort leaks. If anything, the gambit has backfired already—a U.S.
official told FP the embassy was “very angry.” A spokesperson for Lutsenko said he was not available for interviews until after election day. Yet this chaotic sentiment should not be cause for alarm,
explained Liubov Tsybulska, the head of the Hybrid Warfare Analytical
Group, which analyzes Russian disinformation campaigns. “I like that
it’s real democracy,” she wrote in a text message. “Russians call it
mess, but that’s how free society does election.” In fact, Ukraine’s
elections could not be any more different than Russia’s, because current
polls show the outcome is almost completely unpredictable.
Of
the three major candidates, Zelensky has consistently received the
biggest vote in pre-election opinion surveys, but he has no political
experience.
Of the three major
candidates, Zelensky has consistently received the biggest vote in
pre-election opinion surveys, but he has no political experience.
He is the star of a popular TV show called Servant of the People,
which is about a schoolteacher who accidentally becomes president of
Ukraine. His politics are a mystery. Instead of traveling across Ukraine
to give policy speeches, he has chosen to tour the country with stars
from his production company. What is most suspect about Zelensky is that
he models his candidacy on his television personality. Actors know that
to make their character real they must draw on personal experiences.
Zelensky has reversed this phenomenon.
“To some degree, maybe people really do have the feeling that the guy
on screen and the guy in real life are one and the same person,”
Zelensky told reporters, according to the Washington Post.
“This might even be true, to some extent.” But no one knows how
Zelensky will react when he encounters problems that lie outside the
boundaries of a TV sitcom, like if Russia launches a cyberattack against
the country’s banks. Perhaps a scriptwriter will advise him. The other
two major candidates—Poroshenko and Tymoshenko—do not share such an
apolitical past. Even Poroshenko’s supporters admit that he has not done enough as president to fight corruption.
Even Poroshenko’s supporters admit that he has not done enough as president to fight corruption.
His campaign is plagued
by an investigative report that found Poroshenko’s allies were
smuggling spare military parts from Russia and selling them at inflated
prices to the Ukrainian military. For a country at war with Russia, the
allegations have sparked ire. But Peter Dickinson, a fellow at the
Atlantic Council, said that the claims may not be significant. “He has
almost zero credibility as an anti-corruption crusader and therefore
this issue is not an important part of his re-election bid,” Dickinson wrote.
“Poroshenko’s electoral appeal is rooted in the notion of ‘better the
devil you know’ and his presidential campaign rests on his ability to
convince voters that he is the lesser of all available evils.”
U.S. officials are skeptical of Tymoshenko, the country’s former
prime minister, and fear that she has a pro-Russian outlook. They point
to a 2009 deal
that Tymoshenko signed with then-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
to supply Ukraine with Russian gas. Steven Pifer, who served as U.S.
ambassador to Ukraine during the Clinton administration, said Tymoshenko
could also simply be a pragmatic politician who saw a personal
political advantage in working with Putin. “She is pro-Tymoshenko,”
Pifer said. “She is also smart enough as a politician to know that
anyone who gets elected and moves in a dramatically pro-Russian way is
going to lose the country’s support very quickly. Her views are
flexible.” Pifer argued that what is most worrying about Tymoshenko is
her populist campaign to cut gas prices and raise pensions that would
bankrupt the country and lead to the loss of crucial IMF funding. But Ukraine’s next president may be at the mercy of larger forces.
Parliamentary elections that take place this fall could thwart the
president’s agenda. The next president will be tasked with immediately renegotiating a gas deal with Russia and trying to end the war in the east.
The next president will be tasked with immediately renegotiating a gas deal with Russia and trying to end the war in the east.
The success of both initiatives will depend on Moscow’s willingness to
negotiate. And Ukraine’s powerful oligarchs could shackle the future
president. The oligarchs support different candidates in this election.
Perhaps the two most influential—Poroshenko himself and the billionaire
Ihor Kolomoisky—have feuded during this campaign. If the oligarchs don’t
come to a consensus and compromise on a presidential candidate, then
there will be political gridlock, according to Victor Andrusiv, the head
of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future think tank. Currently, there
is little indication the country’s richest men will come together.
“This is the first election where the oligarchs do not have a common
candidate,” Andrusiv said. “If there is no consensus, nobody can get
power.”
Justin Lynch is a journalist covering Eastern Europe, Africa, and cybersecurity.
Ich habe dieses Buch gekauft, weil Krimi-Königin Ingrid Noll Wolfgang ... sehr, daß wir die monatliche literarische Veranstaltung Vita Magica von Wolfgang Hampel bald einmal besuchen können.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club, founded by Wolfgang Hampel, has members in 40 countries.
Wolfgang Hampel, author of Betty MacDonald biography interviewed Betty MacDonald's family and friends. His Interviews have been published on CD and DVD by Betty MacDonald Fan Club. If you are interested in the Betty MacDonald Biography or the Betty MacDonald Interviews send us a mail, please.
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