Ukraine: what's really going on?

Among the observers of the current turmoil in Ukraine one finds three principal interpretations:

(1) It is a struggle between a democratic reform movement and a corrupt post-soviet oligarchy. The partisans of Viktor Yushchenko are on the side of all that is right and good. Viktor Yanukovych's supporters are trying to hold back progress and are in cahoots with Vladimir "Stalin Lite" Putin's Russia. This is clearly the perspective of Discoshaman, who is writing from the centre of the action (and whose real name I should probably know but can't recall at the moment).

(2) It is a struggle between two geographic and cultural regions, with the largely Greek Catholic west pulling the country towards Europe and the largely russophone and (vestigially) Orthodox east leaning towards Russia. Westerners support Yushchenko and easterners largely favour Yanukovych.

(3) Yushchenko is the latest in a long line of western pawns put in place in countries around the world on the pretext of facilitating democracy. This third perspective is articulated by the former Indian ambassador to Turkey, K Gajendra Singh, writing for the Asia Times Online.

So who is right? Who has the handle on what is really happening in the former Soviet republic? I myself tend towards the second interpretation. In my study of politics over the decades I have long been persuaded of the tremendous impact of political culture in the functioning of political systems. The notion of political culture is roughly synonymous with what earlier generations would have labelled a constitution in the larger empirical sense. It is the intangible complex of attitudes that a community carries towards a variety of factors, such as respect for authority, the rule of law, political participation, styles of leadership, the role of government, national purpose, &c. These are intimately connected with specific arrangements of political institutions to such an extent that efforts to refashion the latter in fundamental ways can collapse if they run counter to the political culture.

With respect to Ukraine, it may well be true that the largely Greek Catholic ukrainophone (is that a word?) westerners value democracy and aspire to membership in the European Union and NATO. There may indeed be more corruption in the east, and Yanukovych may indeed have authoritarian tendencies more in keeping with the country's Soviet past. Yet efforts to portray the current struggle as one pitting the good democrat against the bad autocrat may miss the mark in at least one respect. Even if the russophone east is mired in its old Soviet ways, this is a political reality that must be taken into account in any effort to bring peace and unity to the country as a whole. If Yushchenko wins the runoff vote on 26 December and if easterners feel hard done by, any effort to move Ukraine in a more westerly direction will effectively alienate a large proportion of the population.

That is why a political system whose chief executive is elected on a winner-take-all basis may not be best for a divided country such as Ukraine. The current electoral battle is a zero-sum contest in which one of the halves of the country, in the absence of a tradition of loyal opposition, is certain to feel shut out. Western journalists who can hardly conceal their enthusiasm for Yushchenko might wish to keep this in mind as they file their reports from Kyiv and elsewhere. So by all means the election should be free and fair. Everything must be done to prevent fraud. But it may be that the electoral system itself should be reformed to better reflect the reality of a divided polity. If citizens are no longer fearful of being locked out of the political process and having their legitimate interests ignored or trampled upon, they are less likely to succumb to efforts to subvert elections.