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
3. Modern Barriers to Elite Renewal
The normative behaviour that developed under Soviet rule has shaped the context of elite renewal and further party development in post-communist states. As a result, it continues to hinder party capacity to promote new political elites via internal party competition. These norms have also created conditions favourable to the development of an apathetic electorate and passive civil society, which are unable to hold political leaders accountable other than through disruptive social upheavals. This Soviet legacy and the difficult democratic transitions of the 1990s, which impacted the societal, institutional, and economic spaces of these countries, have created a path-dependent trajectory for the development of similar political elite renewal patterns in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
Political parties have gradually lost their significance as a source of elite renewal as many social constituencies reject them altogether as mechanisms to aggregate social preferences. This pattern continues today. According to recent polls, only 2.3 per cent of citizens fully trust political parties in Ukraine, while 41.1 per cent fully distrust them.6 Meanwhile, in a recent poll in Georgia, 48 per cent of respondents stated that no party represents them, and this percentage has continued to rise since 2016, when the incumbent GD party won a second term.7 Figure 1 shows similar high levels of distrust in public attitudes across all three states.
Figure 1: Distrust in political parties, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine
— Source: Razumkov Centre (UA), Institute for Public Policy (MD), and International Republican Institute (GE) poll data.
Figure 1: Distrust in political parties, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine
From a societal perspective, citizens are rarely interested in joining political parties as a stepping stone into politics. Slow democratic transitions in the region have helped create an amorphous civil society without the skills to seize the opportunity for independent political activity and proactive participation. Among the more active citizens, few are committed enough to join or support political parties because of repeated disillusionment with the political process since independence. Young people are also acutely aware that party membership and hard work are not prerequisites for building a career in politics. Even political figures avoid joining political parties. In a speech at Chatham House, Tudor Ulianovschi, the Moldovan minister for foreign affairs and European integration, twice proudly mentioned that he is not a member of any political party.8 Recent presidential elections in Georgia also revealed a widening gap between political parties and young people, reflected in falling levels of political party activism. According to the National Endowment for Democracy, ‘politically active youth often refuse to engage with political parties, regarding them with cynicism and distrust; instead, young people show a preference for spontaneous activism and taking to the streets.’9
Political parties in all three countries have yet to learn how to effectively engage with civil society, and how to find value in promoting political cadres via internal party competition. Mobilization tools, such as protests and demonstrations, represent a political party’s main means of engaging citizens on mass. However, there is growing fatigue with this form of political engagement. In the case of Moldova, attempts by political parties to organize protests in 2015–18 were scuppered by low turnout. In 2018, lacklustre protests were also seen in response to the invalidation of local mayoral elections in Chisinau, Moldova’s capital city – just a few thousand protesters took part. This demonstrates the broader disillusionment with protests and the high levels of distrust in political parties as efficient organizers and agents of transformation. Furthermore, the intransigence of elites and the glacial pace of social change have weakened the desire of societies to hold elected officials accountable more generally.
Few political parties have invested in the development of their youth political organizations to incubate a new generation of elites. These branches are most developed in Moldova compared to Ukraine and Georgia. Yet even in Moldovan political parties, young people with an interest in politics are mostly only used as cheap labour during electoral campaigns, for example in the printing and distribution of promotional materials. This misuse of human capital and lack of programmes to develop the skills of younger members compounds distrust that the process meant to nurture future elites could ever be based on meritocracy and professionalism.10
The largest parties in Georgia have also struggled to develop youth branches, ‘neither their form, nor structure, nor nature correspond to the task of educating new politicians and the country’s political elite’. These organizations are also ‘a youth supplement used for [the distribution of] election propaganda’.11
Moreover, the sluggish process of transition to a political system that fully upholds democratic values has created demand for a new type of politics and reform, but little demand for new types of politicians. A candidate’s charisma and personality are still among the main determining factors of electoral choice across all three states. This was seen in Georgia’s 2017 local mayoral elections in which GD-party candidate Kakha Kaladze, a former AC Milan football player, was elected mayor of Tbilisi. His competitors in the election were UNM candidate Zaal Udumashvili, a popular TV presenter, and Aleko Elisashvili, an independent candidate who tried to replicate Emmanuel Macron’s rise in politics. In addition, TV debates in which candidates discuss politics and policy are unpopular.12 To the electorate, charismatic leaders rather than goal-oriented bureaucratic politicians are more likely to deliver on reforms and have a greater sense of ideological clarity.
Similarly, the 2019 presidential race in Ukraine has attracted candidates from outside of the political sphere – a further sign of fatigue with old-style politics. Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, a rock singer, though no political novice, was initially thought to be a serious contender to other political veterans – incumbent President Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Tymoshenko – though he later chose not to run.13 The biggest surprise, however, was the new president-elect Volodymyr Zelenskyi, a comedian and political newcomer in Ukrainian politics.14 In the first round, Zelenskyi won more votes (30.24 per cent) than Poroshenko (15.95 per cent) and Tymoshenko (13.4 per cent) combined. His landslide victory (73.22 per cent) in the presidential runoff will go down in Ukraine’s modern history as a protest vote against the political establishment.
Personality traits of the leadership are more decisive in the success of political parties than manifestos, which have only been required by law in Ukraine since 2001. According to a recent poll, 57 per cent of respondents stated that a candidate’s personality is the most important factor of success, while just 40 per cent thought it was the manifesto.15 This societal preference for charismatic leaders over comprehensive party programmes is also the case in Moldova and Georgia.
From an institutional perspective, political parties have also struggled throughout democratic transition to promote new professional cadres and form political elites based on meritocracy. A key reason for this was the inability of these states to create a sustainable party finance mechanism immediately after they declared independence. The state could not provide a transparent and level playing field for political parties. Nor did it provide a legal framework that would encourage parties to declare their sources of funding and reduce their risk of being dominated by private interests. The opaque politics and economics of the 1990s led to parties becoming the tools of the rich (frequently through illegal means) to gain power, and then maintain it either through a seat in parliament or by pulling strings in the background. States introduced public financing for political parties much later. However, the regulations heavily favour large parties and incumbent politicians to the detriment of smaller ones and political newcomers that would rely on this public money. Hence, parties continue to be created around individual leaders who are also their main financial supporters. It may be that the sponsors are not necessarily also the leaders of the party, but they hold significant sway over the party’s direction. Funders can dictate internal party rules and decide whom to prioritize as candidates on party lists in electoral campaigns. They therefore decide who has the best chance of becoming a member of parliament. This continuing reliance on private finances, rather than on membership fees and donations from the public, makes it almost impossible for the social constituencies of parties to hold their leaders to account. It also enables business elites to dominate domestic politics.
The relatively recent introduction of public financing for political parties has raised expectations for an equitable political environment, which would allow parties to focus on the quality of their political leadership rather than exclusively on funding. The introduction of political financing in Ukraine in July 2016 was not immediately fully enforced and its effectiveness has been disappointing so far. In Georgia and Moldova, despite public funding for parties being introduced earlier than in Ukraine, there has yet to be significant change in electoral competition. The most recent presidential elections in Georgia have been categorized as one of the dirtiest in Georgia’s history.16 While quality policy debate and sustainable political pluralism are still absent from Moldova’s electoral process. Public financing of political parties has the potential to improve the quality and fairness of political competition for all actors, but this remains to be seen.
From an economic perspective, weak institutional frameworks and legislation have failed to discourage excessive private financial flows from entering politics and increased the influence of private business interests. The rise of oligarchs as a result of non-transparent privatization, regional monopolies, and their intrusion into politics has distorted the level playing field for emerging new political leaders. Oligarchs monopolize the media space, which is critical for healthy electoral competition, and in doing so raise the costs of campaigning. This further limits the diversity of political voices and discourages smaller new parties from joining the debate.
Today, vested interests have higher stakes in the politics of these three countries than ever before as their positions are threatened by increased scrutiny on behalf of the EU, stronger domestic NGOs, and the legislation adopted as part of these countries’ commitments to European integration. Most oligarchs who venture into politics are controversial figures. A top-ranking position in politics usually offers them immunity from legal problems, but once they lose power the prospect of prison becomes more likely. One such case is that of Vlad Filat, former prime minister of Moldova, who immediately after being stripped of parliamentary immunity during a plenary session of Parliament was put on trial and subsequently jailed on charges of abuse of office and corruption.
In the three states examined in this paper, some of the factors impeding the development of a new generation of political actors, as analysed above, are more critical than others. These obstacles all undermine the capacity of political parties, their incentives and interests in encouraging genuine reform-oriented elites to the fore in politics. As a result, the same modus operandi has prevailed in the past two decades. Elites continue to perceive their term in office as a means of self-enrichment for those in key positions of power or as a means of preserving their vested interests.
6 Razumkov Centre (2019), Рівень довіри до суспільних інститутів та електоральні орієнтації громадян України [Level of trust towards public institutions and electoral orientations of Ukrainian citizens].
7 Thornton, L. and Turmanidze, K. (2018), Public Attitudes in Georgia, National Democratic Institute, June 2018, https://www.ndi.org/sites/default/files/NDI_June_2018_Presentation_Public_ENG_vf.pdf (accessed 11 Mar. 2019).
8 Ulianovschi, T. (2018), ‘The Transnistrian Conflict: Ways Forward’, Chatham House research event, 19 June 2018, https://www.chathamhouse.org/event/conflict-transnistria-ways-forward.
9 National Endowment for Democracy, (undated), ‘Is the party over? Youth, political parties, and elections in Georgia’, event, 11 December 2018, https://www.ned.org/events/is-the-party-over-youth-political-parties-and-elections-in-georgia/.
10 Author interviews in Chisinau, Kyiv and Tbilisi in March–July 2017.
11 Chedia, B. (2015), ‘The Georgian political elite: main trends of its circulation’, Central Asia and the Caucasus, 16(3–4): pp. 42–29, https://www.ca-c.org/journal/2015/journal_eng/cac-03-04/04.shtml (accessed 11 Mar. 2019).
12 Author interview with representative from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), Tbilisi, July 2017.
13 Transitions (TOL) (2018), ‘Rock star, comedian could join Ukrainian presidential race’, 31 August 2018, https://www.tol.org/client/article/27926-ukraine-politics-presidential-elections-yulia-tymoshenko.html (accessed 11 Mar. 2019).
14 Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (2019), ‘Суспільно-політичні настрої населення України: січень-лютий2019’ [‘Socio-political mood among the Ukrainian population: January–February 2019’], https://www.kiis.com.ua/materials/pr/20191402_pressconf/pr_ratings_feb2019.pdf (accessed 11 Mar. 2019).
15 Razumkov Centre (2018), За півроку до виборів: рейтинги кандидатів і партій, мотивації вибору, очікування громадян [Six months before the elections: ratings of candidates and parties, motivations of choice, citizens’ expectations], http://razumkov.org.ua/uploads/socio/2018_press_release_1808.pdf (accessed 11 Mar. 2019).
16 Cosby, A. (2018), ‘Last Direct Presidential Election in Georgia May Set A Caucasus First’, RFE/RL, 28 October 2018, https://www.rferl.org/a/last-direct-presidential-election-in-georgia-may-set-a-caucasus-first-/29567315.html (accessed 11 Mar. 2019).