All (Ukrainian) Politics Are Local

In the Kyiv city council race, the results were not announced for several days, even though Vitali Klitschko’s mayoral candidacy—similar to Poroshenko’s—was not seriously contested. His UDAR party collected 40 percent of the votes in the city council race, but the election also marked the decline of traditional parties. The Party of the Regions and the Communists are gone. Batkivschina, which once ruled Kyiv, received only 4 percent of the vote. Instead, the Radical Party received 9.2 percent, the Samopomich (Self-Reliance) 6.7 percent, the Civic Position 3.6 percent, the New Life 3.4 percent, the Unity 3.4 percent, and the Democratic Alliance 3 percent. Some of these groupings are simply examples of old faces running under new brands, but the results show that Ukrainians want to see different and more diverse representatives at the local level. Although the results were also fiercely challenged, parallel vote tabulation showed identical results. The Democratic Alliance had expected better results since it is the recognized engine of the Euromaidan movement. However, it's no compromises attitude in the current unity-seeking atmosphere may have been off-putting to many potential supporters.

Neither Poroshenko nor Klitschko should see the results in Kyiv as the product of their alliance. Rather, it’s a reflection of the circumstances in which Ukraine and its voters found itself after Viktor Yanukovych fled the country. The historical task for both of them is to build deeper alliances, both at the national and local levels. These local elections demonstrated the importance of holding parliamentary elections—and help explain why scheduling them has proven so difficult. Given the public’s desire to break the monopoly on political life exercised by Yanuvovych-era parties, changing the electoral system to a proportional scheme with open lists and preferential voting—a step advocated by Maidan’s civic enablers—would infuse new blood into Ukraine’s dysfunctional politics. This would also help to address the structural challenges of devolution of central authority and strengthening of self-government. Last but not least, it would let President Poroshenko focus on reform of the key (and weakest) aspect of central government, the law enforcement agencies, a task which fits into his responsibility to handle foreign and defense policy under the current constitution. One suspects that Poroshenko’s actions in this area could easily take on authoritarian trappings, based on his post-Orange track record using his position as head of National Security Council for his own interest.

Ukraine, both East and West, expects Kyiv to pursue further political devolution. Poroshenko is likely to be wary of the phenomenon following the emergence of the so-called Mariupol memorandum on May 16. Just after botched military attempts to take on separatists in the city, local stakeholders, including businesses, law enforcement, and some of the separatists themselves, signed an agreement that allowed peace to return to the city. Remarkably, neither the central authorities nor the region’s governor were among the signatories.

Kyiv will either lead a devolution of its power to regional authorities or its authority will continue to erode in the face of locally generated solutions.