The Grammar of Democracy
The Rada once again turned into arena of political show. It’s no surprise that the tribune in the Ukrainian parliament has been blocked. It’s much more curious that this time it has been done by the majority, rather than the minority. It’s no surprise that the “orange” coalition has been founded on the “friendship against the foe” principle, rather than ideological basis. And it’s much more curious that the Prime Minister’s party not only defies that of the President – it doesn’t allow him to address the assembly. I hope that our political strategists don’t reckon with Ukraine’s breakup into western and eastern parts: Considering that the “Westerner” Tymoshenko counts on a tactical alliance with the “Easterner” Yanukovich, one can see that a common Ukrainian political field has been formed.
The complex maneuvers of Yulia Tymoshenko concerning the overhauling of the Constitution and humiliating of the President are a multimove game. In East Europe a woman can hardly win a presidential election, even if her surname is Tymoshenko. If she manages to extend the powers of the Prime Minister to the maximum, that’ll be fine – she is already Prime Minister. If she fails to do it (which appears more probable), she will make another step towards destroying the reputation of Victor Yushchenko. So in the presidential election, she will be able to leave him behind and get in the second run, with all non-eastern voters casting their ballots for her. But at the same time the protracted political crisis will drag on, no anti-inflationary measures will be taken, the prestige of all state institutions will sink – a bad line in the end. What can be concluded from this?
A Polish journalist said ten years ago that they have learned the democratic vocabulary in Central Europe without mastering the democratic grammar yet. But since that time both parliament and premier-presidential republics of Central and South-Eastern Europe have tried “the government of the broad coalition” (Macedonia), cabinets of the minorities (Poland, Roumania, the Czech Republic) and attempts of presidential impeachments (Lithuania, Roumania). The political elites of these countries managed to cut on the powers of the ambitious presidents and PMs who wanted too much. You should bear in mind that such influential politicians as Lech Wałęsa, Vladimír Mečiar and Ion Iliescu were among them. Even Serbia succeeded in its struggle against the authoritarian Milošević, and now it’s trying to combat the Šešelj radicals, which are considered a pro-Russian force by some of the Russian ignorant politicians. So it seems that they have learnt the political grammar to the West of Russia’s border. And Ukraine has just begun to study it. As history shows, it will learn it making several mistakes first.
And what does the Russian political linguistics look like? Unfortunately, we haven’t overcome the row concerning which the language to learn – Western-democratic or Chinese. And while there is no language to learn, one uses the vocabulary of the Leningrad rock-band, which is highly estimated by the sub-political elite. It need be said that the language of the Internet is not subject to censorship, too. Isn’t it a sign that it’s time to take up democratic language textbooks, especially considering the experience of our western neighbours? You can’t escape the “bad grammar” phase, you only need to pass it as soon as possible.
Boris Makarenko, First Deputy Director of the Center for Political Technologies
All the Article in Russian as of May 14, 2008
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