Freedom in the World 1999 - Ukraine

1999 Scores

Status: Partly Free
Freedom Rating: 3.5
Civil Liberties: 4
Political Rights: 3

Trend Arrow ↓

Ukraine receives a downward trend arrow due to increased government pressure on the independent media, presidential elections in October-November which were not free and fair, and attempts by the executive after the elections to increase presidential powers at the expense of parliament.

Overview

Leonid Kuchma was reelected president on November 14, 1999 in the second round of a bitterly contested election. In the first round, held on October 31, were 13 candidates: 3 from extreme left and Pan-Slavic parties (including the Communists), 2 moderate leftist candidates (including the Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz), 5 centrist candidates (including Kuchma and former Prime Minister Yevhen Marchuk), and 3 radical reformers (including 2 from different wings of Rukh). Kuchma and Communist leader Petro Symonenko went through to the second round, where Kuchma won with 56.25 per cent against Symonenko's 37.8 per cent. Oleksandr Tkachenko, parliamentary chairman, dropped out of the race on the eve of the elections and advised his supporters to back the Communists.

International observers unanimously declared that the 1999 elections were not free, fair and democratic. Both the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe listed numerous violations committed during the presidential elections. These included employment of state officials (the militia, teachers, civil servants, and hospital staff) in pro-Kuchma campaigns, biased pro-Kuchma media (especially state television); and a failure to follow election procedures according to the law. A leading left-wing populist, Natalya Vitrenko, leader of the Progressive Socialists, narrowly survived an apparent assassination attempt. Moderate left-winger Moroz, whom Kuchma most feared to face in the second round, was the target of a large disinformation and obstructionist campaign. Regardless of these violations international observers did not believe that the final outcome would have been different had conditions been more fair.

The combined left vote in the parliamentary elections on March 29, 1998 remained 40 per cent, the same as it had been in the 1994 parliamentary elections. While labeling the vote generally free and fair, international monitoring groups from the OSCE and the Council of Europe cited some cases that had marred the election campaign. Voting took place under an electoral system, adopted in 1997, in which half the seats were decided by proportional representation according to national party lists and half were allocated in single-mandate constituencies. Turnout was reported at 70 percent.

In summer 1998, after months of deadlock, the Rada (parliament) elected Tkachenko, a leading member of the anti-reform Peasants Party, as parliamentary chairman. Tkachenko has used his position to halt economic and political reforms and call for Ukraine to change its foreign policy orientation away from the West towards the Russian-Belarusian union. By summer 1999 the balance of political forces in the Rada was 175 from 4 left-wing factions plus 17 from Hromada. Reformist forces in the Rada could count upon 151 pro-Kuchma centrist factions and 89 from anti-Kuchma centrist and center-right groups, such as Rukh. Between 1998 and 1999 the overall balance of forces gradually shifted away from the left, and in the aftermath of the presidential elections a center/center-right pro-reform majority emerged of 250 deputies that will attempt to remove Tkachenko from his position.

In other issues, the International Monetary Fund suspended further financial assistance until after the presidential elections and the formation of a new reformist government. Industrial production grew in 1999, and Ukraine could record its first year of Gross Domestic Product growth in 2000. After being reelected Kuchma promised to reinvigorate his reform programme and hold a referendum on changing the constitution to grant him additional economic powers, which had ended in June 1999, and reform the Rada into a bicameral parliament. Since December 1998, former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko is awaiting his application for asylum in the United States through 1999-2000 accused of money laundering and corruption.

Ukraine declared independence from a crumbling Soviet Union in 1991, when Leonid Kravchuk was elected president. In the summer 1994 presidential race, Kravchuk lost to Kuchma, an industrialist and former prime minister, in a runoff. After the president warned that he would call for a popular referendum, parliament voted in favor of the constitution in June 1996.

Ukraine's parliament ratified the May 1997 Russian-Ukrainian treaty in February 1998, and the lower and upper houses of the Russian parliament followed suit in December 1998 and February 1999. The Black Sea Fleet question was resolved with the signing of three agreements that lease it three out of five bays in Sevastopol until 2017; another 17 agreements await signing. The Crimean question was resolved with the adoption of the first nonseparatist constitution in October 1998, ratified and put into operation by the Rada in December.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Ukrainians can change their government democratically. Presidential and parliamentary elections in 1994 and parliamentary elections in 1998 were deemed generally "free and fair" by international observers, though there were reports of irregularities and preelection intimidation as well as violence directed at democratic organizations and activists. Changes in the electoral law adopted in 1997 instituted a mixed system in which 50 percent of candidates were elected by majority vote and 50 by proportional representation. International observers reported that the 1999 presidential elections were not held in a fair and free manner. The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly decided to not suspend Ukraine after the constitutional court ruled on December 30 that the death penalty is unconstitutional. The CE also welcomed the Ukrainian parliament's ratification of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages.

A 1991 press law purports to protect freedom of speech and the press, but it only covers print media. The constitution, the Law on Information (1992), and the Television and Radio Broadcasting Law (1994) protect freedom of speech, but there are laws banning attacks on the president's "honor and dignity." There are more than 5,000 Ukrainian and Russian-language newspapers, periodicals, and journals, although most Ukrainians obtain their news from television. Privately owned broadcasters include 1+1. Inter (formerly state television channel 3) and the former independent television station STB are now controlled by pro-Kuchma groups. There are 25 regional and two national state-owned television and radio stations. From 1997 to 1999 pro-Lazarenko/Hromada newspapers were either closed or bought out by pro-Kuchma oligarchs. Mykhailo Brodksy, owner of the antigovernment Kievskiye Vedomosti, was arrested in March 1998 and charged with illegal property deals. In 1999 the newspaper was taken over by Hryhorii Surkis, a leading businessman and member of the pro-Kuchma United Social Democrats.

The previously outlawed Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox churches are legal, but conflicts continue over church property and personalities, such as Patriarch Filaret, head of one of the autocephalous churches. Of the three Ukrainian Orthodox churches, two autocephalous and the third and largest, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, still owes its allegiance to the Moscow patriarch. Calls to unite all 3 Orthodox Churches are regularly made by government officials and parties, but little progress will be made until Filaret is no longer Patriarch. Ukraine's estimated 600,000 Jews have more than 300 organizations divided between two bodies that maintain schools and social services. The large Russian and smaller Hungarian, Polish and Romanian minorities enjoy full rights and protections.

Freedom of assembly is generally respected, but organizations must apply for permission to their respective local administration at least ten days before a planned event or demonstration, of which there were several in Kiev in 1999.

There are 90 national political parties representing the political spectrum from far-left to far-right; the largest of these remains the Communists. In 1999 Viacheslav Chornovil, leader of Rukh and a former dissident, died in what some believe was a suspicious car accident. Rukh then went on to divide itself into conservative and radical wings. Thirty parties and blocs contested the March 1998 parliamentary elections. There are some 4,000 registered nongovernmental organizations in Ukraine, including cultural, women's, sports, human rights, environmental, and public policy organizations. The Federation of Trade Unions, a successor to the Soviet-era federation, claims 20 million members. The National Confederation of Trade Unions has three million members and includes some independent trade unions.

The judiciary remains subject to political interference. The courts are organized on three levels: rayon (district) courts, oblast (regional) courts, and the supreme court. Parliament, the president, and the congress of judges each appoint six of the constitutional court's 18 members for nine-year terms. Judges are appointed by the president for an initial five-year term, after which they are subject to parliamentary approval for lifetime tenure.

Freedom of movement within the country is not restricted by law. However, regulations impose a nationwide requirement to register at the workplace and place of residence in order to be eligible for social benefits, thereby complicating freedom of movement by limiting access to certain social benefits to the place where one is registered.

Property rights are formally guaranteed by the constitution and the property laws. Land reform is still in the preliminary stages. Though, under law, citizens have the right to form businesses, these rights are hindered by taxation policies, overregulation, and growing crime and corruption. Fifty percent of the GDP is believed to be generated by the "shadow economy" that operates outside business and tax regulations.

Women are well represented in education, in government, and in the professional classes, and there are numerous NGOs that focus on women's issues such as domestic violence. Women remain underrepresented in the Rada.