Ukraine Throughout The Twentieth Century

Ukraine throughout the twentieth century

HISTORIC CONTEXT

The twentieth century, from which our study on the political system of Ukraine starts, was a century in which Ukraine and Russia had a continuous relationship, yes, with the predominance of the second on that, predominance is that, onceLost with the passing of time and the geopolitical change suffered worldwide after the fall of the USSR, it has become a Russian aspiration that have led both countries to the confrontation situation that is currently lived.

Through this prism, the historical context of Ukraine will be presented, a prism that has led the country to a political system somewhat away from what is a democracy, left over with conflicts, with an electoral system starring personalities gestated during the Cold WarAnd in which, today, there is a scenario full of problems to solve and challenges to be conquered although it wants to be part of a European Union that only holds it as a “neighbor”, and not as a memberfull right, since the signing of the 2017 agreement.

A nation without a state

Despite its more than 45 million inhabitants, its extension, second largest country in Europe, its natural resources and its strategic position, has not managed to position itself in a comfortable situation in Europe, but quite the opposite, it is considered one ofthe poorest countries, consolidating as that weak state of which Russia, with which he shares border, language and roots, at any time, has tried to take advantage.

It was very well described by the Ukrainian journalist Yulia Mostovoya “Ukraine is a nation with a colossal history, but without a story as a state. We are learning to handle ourselves because for centuries, that was the task of Poles, Austrohungaros, Turks, Russians and others ”. With this description, the journalist showed us that land of borders through which so many civilizations had passed centuries that had prevented Ukraine from being formed as a strong state.

Entering this, it can be highlighted, for considering the germ of the current situation, that partition of Ukraine of the political scientist Vladimir Fasenko where he distinguishes the two Ukraine: “A country that emerged on the border of two civilizations, the Russian, the Orthodox and the Western one, theEuropean, this border status is our geographical and historical destiny."

Stalin’s rusification.

Precisely in that status that Fasenko showed us as a destination, we can find the main point of origin of the conflict that keeps the Ukrainian static state in all orders. To do this, we must go back to 1918, when most of the current territory of Ukraine obtains independence and ceases to belong to Russia, as he had done during the time of the Tsars, becoming the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine. After the Polish-Soviet war due to the domain of the lands of this Republic, a war that would begin in 1919 ending in 1921 with La Paz de Riga, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine would become 1922 in the founding member of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, Crimea, with the Russian revolution, would become part of the Soviet Russia.

The fact that both lands were part of the Soviet Union did not prevent, on the one hand, Ukraine suffer the planned extermination by Stalín through the great famine of 1932-1933, as shown in the book “The century ofThe genocides ”Bernard Bruneteau. The "deskulakization" ended the life of almost 6 million Ukrainians accused of nationalist aspirations and independence desires, with it the territory, maximum aspiration of Stalin;On the other hand, to the tartaros of Crimea, once the II World War ended, they deported to Central Asia accusing them of Nazi collaboration, which, over time, would be seen as another geo-political and strategic maneuverAfter deportation, the lands were repopulated by citizens of Russian ethnicity, thus converting Crimea into a region with more than 60 % of Russian population.

From Kruschev to Gorbachev

In 1954 Nikita Kruchsev, Ukrainian of origin, to commemorate the 300 years of the adhesion of Ukraine to Russia and as a reward for all the evil violated by Stalin, decided to give Crime to Ukraine. This fact that went almost unnoticed, as it was a mere transfer from a Soviet republic to another, did not count on that, as it was, the Soviet Union could disappear. With Gorbachev and his Perestroika that moment would come, a moment of restructuring of a worn system that, with the support of the Glasnost, would make that new Soviet Union see, neither briefly, not for silence.

It was in 1991, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, when Ukraine needed and began trying to create his own identity, complicated task with all the backgrounds above above. The adopting the Ukrainian language as the only official language, despite the fact that more than 37 % of the population spoke Russian, showed, in a way, the path to follow.

The Ukrainian Transition (1991-1999)

If a democratic state was the objective, with democracy it was necessaryof Independence of Ukraine raised by the Ukrainian Parliament. In this way it could be legitimately signed, on December 8 of the same year, the Balavezha Treaty with which Russia, Belarus and Ukraine gave extinct the Soviet Union.

From this moment on, political and economic conflicts with Russia, at the expense of oil, gas, the Black Sea fleet and Crimea, among others, would become the predominant note in the international relations of Ukraine, dragging withThis to the entire political system that the new-viejo state wanted to start.

It will not be until June 1996 when the first Ukrainian Constitution is promulgated, five years of hard work from the independence of Ukraine, in which the division of power, property, the symbols of the State, the Russian language and the Republic of Crimea, Crimea,They were the great conflict generators. The left wanted less presidentialism, more Russian, greater property control, as well as maintaining the autonomy of Crimea;On the contrary, the right sought greater presidential power, the supremacy of the Ukrainian, the full right of property and the end of Crimea’s autonomy. He won the right and all his demands were reflected in the new Constitution.

Ukraine became officially, officially, a semipresidential unitary democratic republic, with separation of the three powers – legislative, executive and judicial – with a single legislative body, the Supreme Rada, and with a president as head of state, sharing powerWith the president of the Supreme Rada.

POLITICAL SYSTEM

In the 1996 Constitution, political power was distributed as follows:

The Head of State will be the president of the country, elected by universal direct and secret suffrage for a period of five years, not being able to be in power more than two consecutive mandates. He will be chosen two laps if he does not get more than 50 % of the votes in the first. He will be responsible for guaranteeing state sovereignty, as well as territorial integrity. Among its main prerogatives are to name a large number of positions within the different agencies of the State, the legislative veto, if it considers it convenient and, above all, the absolute power in the Ministries of Defense and Foreign.

The Prime Minister will be the head of the Legislative or Supreme Rada, chosen among the 450 deputies elected by universal suffrage to form the Supreme Rada, elections that will take place every four years on the last Sunday of March in which, in a similar way to theFrom Germany, half of the deputies will be chosen directly, by uninominal constituency, distributing the rest of the seats, proportionally, among the parties that have obtained more than 3 % of the votes -passing 5 % in 2011 in 2011-. Given the powers of power conferred by the Constitution, certain bicephaly or dual government is generated in the country.

The fact that Ukraine had become an independent country, added to the entire constitutional process, did not mean that there was an economic improvement, nor that this democracy meaning in the new Constitution was consolidated. Away from the amparo of the communist system, which sought social equality, integrated into a market economy, as well as immersed in a corruption system that was obviously not new but that had increased, passing in the "rate of perception of corruption"From 69th in 1998 to 122 in 2004, and established in a pseudodemocracy that continued to restrict freedoms, which retaliates possible opponents and that continued to control the media power, entered fully in the 21st century with an economic and political crisis of great draft of great draft.

In 2004, through a constitutional reform, the powers of the Head of State would be diminished, so Ukraine would cease to be a presidential system and would become a parliamentary republic.

A new version of the Cold War

Before such a gray scenario, to which the disagreement was added with Russia, a problem that had never ceased to be present at the base of everything, the Ukrainians decided, with the orange revolution of 2004, to stage said disagreement in internal code between the two Ukraine;The process and the nationalist, who was at the same time pro European. Specifically after the October elections to the presidency of the country, which was attended as candidates Viktor Yanukovich, with the support of Russia, and Viktor Yusenko, which had the sympathies of the US and Europe. Neither of the two candidates took a majorand Great Britain, as well as by American organizations installed in Ukraine. The entire process staged and found a return to political realism and, more specifically, to the cold war, if it went completely at some point, where, the US pressures, on the one hand, and those of Russia, byanother, they avoided once again that a country was free when deciding on their future and thus settling as a state. To this was added that climate of disenchantment, cited in the previous point, towards the policy of the country, blaming the political power of which he was part at that time, and as prime minister, the candidate for President Yanukovich.

The protests did not cease, even the Yanukovich team was blamed for an attempt to poison the opponent and candidate Yusenko, notably lighting the atmosphere that was breathed in the street. Observers of the West requested a third round, which, despite not being contemplated in the Constitution, was consented. Yusenko won and was proclaimed president, forming a government team with whom they had formed the opposition until then.

Ukraine: The poorest country in Europe

That moment and that peaceful revolution were seen as an opportunity for a Ukrainian who wanted more democracy and, with it, a better standard of living. But many months did not have to spend for citizens to realize that almost nothing had changed;Economic problems contributed by the Gas War with Russia, closing of factories, falling the value of the currency up to 50 %, weakness of institutions, conflicts and struggles for power, corruption, end of the middle class, extreme poverty … AllThis together with the suspension by Russia of energy contracts and aid that had given oxygen to the country since their independence in 1991. The orange revolution that had tried to turn the 180 ° country, not only had it not achieved, but had done so;In 2014, Ukraine was in virtual bankruptcy needing two rescues from the IMF to avoid the suspension of payments, turning a country with a privileged location and with a certain level of natural resources, in one of the poorest in the world and the poorest in Europe;But socially, he had managed to leave a country with a greater number of independent associations, the freest media and an activist class willing to go outside at any other time that was necessary. El Maidan was that moment.

Westernization in the former USSR: El Maidán

Viktor Yanukovich, given the disappointment of the government that emerged after the orange revolution, was elected new president of the country in 2010, were years in which former Soviet republics were approaching or being part of the West, entering the EU or being part of NATO. This fact was something that was becoming a nuisance to Kremlin which was seeing as the West, and particularly USA, did not comply with the promises made to Russia after the unification of the two Germans. The territorial approach of the EU and the US was seen by Moscow as a threat to their national security and its economy. Given this scenario, the appointment of Yanukovich, as president of Ukraine, was seen with good eyes for the Kremlin, especially for the firm that took place on April 21, 2010, through which Ukraine extended until 2042 the transfer to Russia ofThe Naval Base of Sebastopol, important and vital strategic point for Russia because since Catalina la Grande had been the entrance door to the Mediterranean, as well as the Ocean indicated during the winter months.

Ukraine had begun on his westernization and, therefore, towards the total desovietization. To do this, the signing of the Association Agreement with the EU was scheduled in 2013 but, the Yanukovich government, justifying its decision in the lack of consensus due to the demands of the International Monetary Fund, among which the increase in gas rates were included, the freezing of wages and cuts in the budget, decided not to sign the treaty and establish greater economic and commercial relations with countries of the former USSR, especially with Russia. This decision, seen with enthusiasm for that Ukraine of the East that continued speaking only RussEuropean to which they aspired so much, together with the new reform that had carried out the Constitution returning all the power subtracted in 2004 to the Head of State, led the Ukrainians, as they did in 2004, to take the streets.

A new political scenario

In the period between November 21, 2013 and February 20, 2014, the protests were rising in tone, so much that in this February 20 the famous kyiv Independence Square, known as El Maidán, Blood of almost a hundred citizens. During the period named, not only was protested by the non -signing of the Treaty with Europe, it was also protested by the corruption of elites and the low standard of living. All this caused President Yanukovich to leave the presidential palace to end up exiled in Russia protected by his friend Putin, who, who had already begun thanks to the war in Syria to put Russia back in the place of which he had separated himSince the disintegration of the USSR, he found in this delicate situation the ideal moment to recover the pearl of the Black Sea, returning Crimea to Russia with what, as the Russian president said, he was committing "an act of historical justice" . With this, as the Spanish diplomat Francisco Pascual said of the part in the presentation of his book “The Empire that returns. The Ukraine War (2014-2017) ”,“ Russia expands its empire and is configured as a state-state, in which borders are expandable for the protection of Russian minorities beyond the borders of the country ”.

To reinforce Crimea’s return to Russian lands, a referendum- not recognized or by Ukraine or the EU was held- in March 2016- in which, with an 83 % participation of the population of Crimea, 97 % votedIn favor of annexation. This led to the unofficial exit of Ukraine of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, territories in which, despite Minsk’s agreements, it is currently continues in conflict and on which more than 10.000 dead and 1.500.000 displaced, becoming the main cause of the martial law of thirty days proclaimed by President Porosenko, on November 27, in the most vulnerable territories of the conflict.

Petro Poroshenko has been the president of Ukraine since 2016, reaching the State Headquarters in the first round. The current prime minister, Volodimir Groysman, was elected in April 2016 by most deputies before the government crisis generated in February of the same year, crisis accrued due to the impossibility of carrying out the reforms that the government had marked inThe road map since the conflict began.

In March 2019, the next presidential elections will be held in which, the entry into NATO and the EU, are aspirations shared by almost all candidates, although the most remarkable is that none provides any solution to return the territories of the DonBass . Moreover, both the head of the State and the Prime Minister seem that they have found in this crisis the perfect excuse notAchieve political and economic support, while delays institutional reforms or adapts them for their benefits and the magnates that support it ” .

Electoral and Party System.

A weak system

Once independence was obtained and with it democracy, Ukraine, in its first elections, opted for a majority electoral system to two laps. Once the USSR was abandoned, the new and necessary party system that was established, as in all democracy, was somewhat chaotic. A high number of parties emerged with the intention of guiding the country along the new path, parties, mostly small, created around economic lines and ethnic lines that only watched over the interests of reduced groups that represented these lines. On the other hand, the distribution of seats was not representative of the vote percentage, benefiting larger parties, such as the Communist Party, and harming small parties. Another handicap were the uninominal districts, allowing many elected deputies who not represented any party, because the only merit was being a person known in their district, which led to build a Parliament with a large number of independent. Therefore, in Parliament there were a large number of parties and a small proportion of affiliated representatives, creating a vulnerable legislative in which it was difficult to reach agreements.

The previous fact, together with certain electoral requirements that occurred in those first elections, requirements such as the need to reach a 50 % participation or that the chosen candidate must exceed 50 % of votes, they came to paralyze the seat taking, which made the choice system rethink. The following elections, those of 1998, were already carried out with a new electoral law where the deputies would be chosen through a semi-professional system: half of the deputies- 225 of 450- would be chosen by majority in uninominal districts, and the other half of betweenThe most number of votes, provided that they had reached 3 % of the total vote.

In 2011 that electoral barrier was modified, moving from 3 % to 5 %, not solving anything, since the problem of lack of cohesion at the national level would continue to exist, necessary cohesion, both to create a strong party system, as a parliamentThat the respect of the Ukrainians deserved, since this premise comes from the hand of the previous. The fact of not being so has taken its toll during all these years, being other points of the creation of the weak state that is Ukraine and that is in the present with all the problems we have been seeing throughout the different points.

The different agents

Political parties: in that "Totum revolution" of parties, fractions and coalitions that have been constantly changing, where only the Communist Party has been shown as a traditional party, presenting itself under the same acronyms and to all the elections to which it has beenAllowed, only those parties or coalitions that obtained representation in the 2014 legislative elections will be listed:

• "Poroshenko Petro Block" European independent of the Ukrainian President (132 seats),
• “Popular Front” nationalist and Europeanist of what was Prime Minister Yatseniuk (82 seats).
• "Samopomich" (self-help) European Center (33 seats) (33 seats)
• "Block of opposition" Liberal, Eurosceptic and Proruso socialism. (29 seats)
• "Radical Party" Extreme Right Party (22 seats)
• "Barkivshchyna" (homeland) liberal-conservator of Yulia Timoshenko (19 seats)

The Communist Party, which won most in the first elections and that had been one of the strong matches, disappeared from Parliament in 2014 by reaching 3.4 %, not exceeding the electoral barrier. At present it is illegalized, as well as the two other parties of communist ideology, by a 2015 law issued by the Ministry of Justice according to which, and in the words of Pável Petrenko ‘or its activity, or its name, or its symbols, neither its program and bylaws meet the demands of the law ‘on the condemnation of communist and national socialist regimes in Ukraine and the prohibition of its propaganda and its symbology ”.

In the same way, the regions party, center party created in 1997, being the most voted force in 2010 raising Yanukovich to the presidency of the State, and which, in 2014, reached just over 3 % of the votes disappearing from theparliament.

On the other hand, it is worth noting the rise of the extreme right parties, as well as the fact that, even center -right parties, they receive former fascist or Nazi cut -led directors in their ranks, having no problem when agreeing to agree with government coalitions withthey. It costs to find leftist matches, because almost all of them, even the independents, in the first place, are turning their purposes to enter Europe and the West, through NATO and the EU and, secondly, they use their efforts inPour a nationalist discourse around that Ukraine that wants to be cohesive out of values and roots that communism left and that, in the present, are the values that look towards Russia, holding this, almost exclusively, in the East and East lands and, to a greater extent, in the independent territories.

Trade Unions: Internationally there are three unions Confederations of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU), All Ukrainian Union of Workers (Solidarity) (Vost) and the Federation Trade Unions of Ukraine (FPU), the latter with more than 10 millionof affiliates being the majority option. Although they have a large number of affiliates, it is a very combative and not very visible trade unionism.

In general, as indicated by the “Report on the violations of union rights”, in Ukraine, despite being regulated by the Constitution and laws, freedom of association, collective bargaining and strike, there are real problemsTo exercise these rights effectively because violations in labor matters are even systematic even by public institutions.

Current challenges and problems

In Ukraine, the list of challenges or problems to solve is somewhat from what a European country is, being typical of a state that remains immersed in an authoritarian system, because towards any area where the view is fixed, there are improper situations ofA westernized country. Lack of freedom of expression and association, torture, ill -treatment, undue seclions, lack of rights, gender equality, are the most indicated problems and challenges to fulfill.

Freedom of expression and association:

Regarding freedom of expression, let’s say that there is covert repression, both media and editors who try to findThe case of two Spanish journalists and two Russians- by, according to the SBU, "injure the national interests of Ukraine", adding that this is what awaits anyone who tried to discredit Ukraine. But death has also become even more the behavior of the State for these freedoms;In 2015 and 2016, respectively, journalists Ores Buzina died, shoot. With all this, being a journalist has become a risk profession in Ukraine, so that, one of the premises that a country must fulfill to be conceptualized as democratic, it is not fulfilled.

Regarding freedom of association, civil society activists, as well as different NGO. It has been legislating with the aim of complicating them existence, forcing them even, if they were associations or people committed against corruption, making their income public, in the case of not doing so they would face serious charges and even prison sentences. The Limitations found to exercise the right of meeting, in a special way in the East Areas, has also been informed by the ACNUR.

The religion:

Religion has not been a conflicting issue in Ukraine, in fact, in the 1996 Constitution, in its article 35, in a country where more than 75 % are believers, the Church-State separation and the freedom of confession for thecitizens, without this constituting any problem. But, with Crimea’s conflict, it has been achieved that the Russian Orthodox Church has broken with the patriarchy of Constantinople by consenting to the independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Due to the facts, Moscow, the main political victim due. In this way, religion has also become part of the armed conflict suffered by the country. Obviously this will be an issue that in the immediate future will have consequences.

Gender issue:

The transition in the country did not take into account gender issues, so, both politically and economically speaking, women were disadvantaged in this new state that made them second citizens, susceptible to unemployment, poverty, traffic and prostitution,among others. Although in recent years, laws of gender equality have been developed, it seems that they do not apply and that, neither from political or judicial institutions, the obligation or need to take them into practice is felt. According to the KVPU union, women face an unequal treatment in the labor market, including discriminatory contracting practices. At present, their salaries are between 25 % and 30 % below the salaries of the opposite sex, which are above the average in discriminatory treatment. According to the global gender gap index, which in 2016 reached 69.98 %, Ukraine stands 69 of the ranking, increasing positions with respect to previous years, thus worsening its situation year after year.

The LGTB community

Although Ukraine was the First Exsovietic Republic to decriminalize homosexuality, the rights of the homosexual collective are not going through their best moment. In this time of involution in which Europe is being installed, this group begins to be affected, not only by extreme right -wing parties or organizations, but also by former leaders of the Government, as is the case of Oleksandr Vilkul, viceprimer minister between 2012and 2014, militant of the opposition block party, which has recently led to Parliament a bill in which it aims to prohibit homosexuality, thereby protecting public morals. On the other hand, the extreme right groups, according to Amnesty International, have begun to burst, without any complex, acts of equality, threatening and assaulting their assistants, growing this number of acts loaded with violence during 2017.

Borders

But if there is any topic that is currently at the cusp of the problems or challenges to be solved, it is that of the borders;On December 10, Petro Poroshenko, has ended the treaty of friendship with Russia, around which the relations of the two countries have developed since the construction of the new states, contemplating in him the respect for the territorial integrity of both statesor the inviolability of the borders. From the annexation of Crimea and Sebastopol as districts by Russia, committing that act of "historical justice" that was indicated in point 2.4, and the self-proclaimed independence of the Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, which gave way to the Donbass war, facing the troops of the Ukrainian army, as well as paramilitary groups of the extreme right, with Ukrainian citizens of those areas attended by volunteers of otherscountries, mainly from Russia, had not reached such a high conflict alert level. According to the Ukrainian Chief of Staff, the Russian Army has doubled the number of military vehicles on the border between the two countries, coinciding with the capture by Moscow of the three Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait claiming that they had transferred theRussian border.

Russia is accused by the international community of wanting to expand its borders wanting to endorse the eastern area of Ukraine, which would return the geostrategic position of which he enjoyed in previous times. Ukraine has asked the European Union to send war ships to the Azov Sea, where the arrest of the ships was carried out, thereby forgetting that Ukraine still does not belong to this institution or, failing that, to NATO, andthat, if he did, a war would begin in Europe that would not be known, a priori, the scope that he could have. This risk could be assumed by Europe by an EU member;Maybe Putin, remembering Stalin, is also overwhelming based on it.

Conclusions

Once the case study of Ukraine is carried out, there is some feeling that there is something that seems to paralyze what the actions of an independent state should be, such as Ukraine since 1991. Perhaps it is the clash between the political idealism intended, at all costs, by the EU and the US from the Soviet disintegration, and the realism of a Russia that resists losing more power than the one who lost at the end of the last century. Two international protagonists wanting to put on their side a country divided into its roots, roots that crawl towards each of these protagonists as if they were part of their own nature, leaving a state that does not end up tear democratically, especially in whichat levels of corruption and freedom of expression and information refers. It seems that the successive governments are comfortable in such a situation and that this causes them to hide the faults referred to, no matter what year after Ukraine year he remains installed, within Democracy Index, in high positions, specifically in 2017 in the 86th place, finding himselfIn the middle of the table, obtaining just over a 5 note over 10, accusing above all the low 3.69 obtained in the category "Government operation". With this note the country becomes "hybrid regime" away from what a democracy is, not only perfect, but also imperfect.

If we add the boom that the extreme right is also significant in Ukraine from El Maidán, with power even within the institutions itself even to a greater extent in personal behaviors or decisions, the future that awaits itA Ukraine could be said that it is nothing flattering because it has become a perfectly more prepared land if possible, for the planting of restrictive positions of rights, equality and freedom, moving away to a greater extent from that democracy that it intended withThe Balavezha Treaty Signature.