A man examines his ballot in front of information posters of the candidates for Ukraine’s parliamentary elections on voting day in a polling station in Kiev. Photo: Getty Images
2. Old Habits Die Hard
The Soviet era was a period of international isolation and socialization of elites into socio-political values characteristic of authoritarianism. It has left a significant imprint on the political culture of elites emerging in former Soviet countries. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union did not practise internal party democracy that would promote constructive policy debate and leadership based on transparent political competition. This is mirrored in the recruitment process of ruling elites in post-communist states, which value loyalty to the patron above professionalism and meritocracy, and prefer obedience over critical thinking.
In pursuit of international legitimacy after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its former states hastily established institutions that were ill-equipped to embed democratic values. The assumption at the time was that integrity, accountability, professionalism, political competition, persuasive dialogue and compromise would permeate these new institutions. This, however, has never materialized. Instead, the economic and political uncertainty of the early 1990s, widespread poverty, the enhanced value of social safety nets, the revival of informal power structures, and the resilience of the Soviet legacy reinforced the practise of old habits, political norms and values.
The Georgian experience best illustrates the resilience of this Soviet legacy. In his analysis of elite recruitment in Georgia in the 1990s, Tukvadze noted that loyalty to the leader, rather than professionalism or the ability to think creatively, was a criterion for success.3 Moreover, dissent or opposition was persecuted. The government of Georgia’s first president, Eduard Shevardnadze, for whom loyalty was a first concern, used the well-worn Soviet system of elite recruitment to sustain his rule and relied on the old structure of communist nomenclature.4
Loyalty is still crucial to elite recruitment in modern Georgia. When President Saakashvili came to power in 2004, following the Rose Revolution, while he employed young and highly qualified professionals with previous experience in the private sector or international organizations, he continued to prioritize loyalty in the recruitment of officials for senior government posts. According to Giorgadze, ‘Saakashvili created the system with young and [politically] inexperienced, but talented people, who were ready to follow the orders of Mikheil Saakashvili without any pre-conditions.’5 The leader of the Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia (GD) party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, similarly prioritizes personal loyalty when promoting and selecting elite candidates to form a government.
This practice also survived in Moldova and Ukraine. It relies on loyalty and obedience to patrons, rather than respect for the rule of law and policy expertise, to advance the principles of democratic governance. However, whereas in the Soviet era fear of the leader and the political system were the drivers of loyalty, in the modern politics of these countries loyalty has mostly a transactional basis with either direct or indirect spoils from rent-seeking schemes, which are part of their dysfunctional political systems, or in ‘incentives’ received from the patron in exchange for allegiance.
Nepotism has also endured. This is particularly the case in Georgia and Moldova, where networks of kin and social relationships were traditional safety nets and substitutes for the lack of merit-based professional opportunities. These networks – nourished by co-dependencies, interests, needs and loyalties – compensate for the unfulfilled expectations of the state and the economy. They thrive when official structures become dysfunctional and subsequently give rise to informal parallel power structures. A system in which positions of power are placed in the hands of family members, close friends or business partners instead of those with the professional skills and potential to succeed, is bound to breed corrupt networks based on easily controlled verticals of power and discourage ordinary citizens from choosing a career in government.
The prevalence of mainly one-man political parties is also a product of the past, which is ingrained in the political cultures of these societies. A small inner circle of trusted individuals around a single leader was an essential element of the Soviet system. The absence of sound and transparent party finance regulations after the dissolution of the Soviet Union has helped to proliferate this model. As a result, the leaders able to mobilize financial capital, often from obscure sources, became the ‘new’ elites. They tended to be those with previous state institutional affiliations or those who had acquired assets after the collapse of the Soviet Union. For example, in Georgia the Union of Citizens of Georgia (CUG) under Shevardnadze, the United National Movement (UNM) under Saakashvili, and the GD party under Ivanishvili are all umbrella parties to serve a particular leadership and provide the necessary qualified majority in parliament to support the decisions of the executive. Such parties tend to be short-lived once the incumbent leadership has gone.
3 Tukvadze, A. (1998), Political Elite, Tbilisi: Publishing House Knowledge, p. 196.
4 Giorgadze, S. (2015), ‘The Influence of Political Culture on Political Elite: The Case of Post-Soviet Georgia’, Master’s Dissertation, Budapest: Central European University, p. 37.
5 Ibid.