The other option is cohabitation arising from a deal which leaves Yulia Tymoshenko in place as the prime minister. Given the present difficult economic situation, such move would free the new president from any responsibility for the resultant hardships.
Victor Yanukovych stays in parliament until he is sworn in as president. For the moment Victor Yushchenko remains the president of Ukraine and were chaos to ensue he will definitely use this as a good excuse for positioning himself as “the guardian of the constitutional order”. However it looks that both the international community and Ukraine’s political elites are ready to accept the result of the election. There have been no reports of severe violations of electoral procedures bar the changes made in the electoral law just few days before the second round of the election.
We expect Yanukovych’s to drift between Russia and the EU in foreign policy. He will also probably opt to rule out NATO membership for his country. Yanukovych has never been an independent politician with his own strategic vision. He represents the interests of the regional oligarchs in Donetsk. Although they are Russian speaking, they have oriented themselves towards EU. At least until the economic crisis hit hard. Now, because as their businesses have been seriously hit by the recession, they have shown less enthusiasm for the West. However, they have little interest in integrating more closely with Moscow, because Russian businesses are their biggest and the most dangerous competitor.
In the region, Ukraine under Yanukovych will follow the Kremlin line. This means that neither the new pro EU Moldovan government and Saakashvili’s regime in Georgia can count on good relations with Kyiv. Also Europe shouldn’t expect to involve Ukraine in solving ‘frozen’ conflicts in such places as Transnistria and South Caucasus. However Brussels should continue to try, at least, to push Kyiv in this direction. Indeed it may well be that crisis hit Ukraine could be persuaded to move in desired directions thanks to an economic carrot – i.e., linking the flow of EU funds to Kyiv’s political moves. It is also likely that Yanukovych will prolong the Russian lease of Sevastopol to Black Sea Fleet base. But he will not go so far as recognizing Abkhazia’s and South Ossetia’s separate statehood as this might cost him too much in terms of closing off access to western funding).
During Janukovych’s presidency, the focus is likely to be more on economics. This, under certain conditions, might allow the EU and the West to influence the behavior of Ukraine and push the country in the direction of reforms. Indeed Ukraine’s membership of the World Trade Organization and its links with the IMF have already successfully anchored Kyiv in the West.
By Jan Pieklo, Polish-Ukrainian Cooperation Foundation PAUCI
