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
5. Creating a Level Playing Field
All three states have failed to develop a level political playing field, which is a fundamental pillar of democracy. While their political party organizations have become stronger, and public financing has been introduced, the relationship of political parties with the electorate and their capacity to aggregate citizens’ interests has not evolved. Representative political parties have struggled in the last three decades, due to the legacy of Soviet-style governance, difficult democratic transitions, vague regulations, and ineffective oversight of party and campaign finances. All of which has encouraged political parties to seek alternative, often questionable, sources of finance and discouraged internal party democracy. The current party and campaign financing rules have led to the rise and consolidation of oligarchic and corrupt elites. Instead of promoting new political leadership, parties now serve vested interests and produce public servants loyal to their patrons. Political parties have compromised their independence, neutrality and platforms to serve as proxies for their benefactors. Dominant elites are generally not interested in consolidating democratic rules and practices, which subsequently undermines the democratization process and leads to a concentration of authority in the hands of a few power groups. This delegitimizes political parties as efficient intermediaries able to further political agendas and nurture political leaders, and further disenfranchises the electorate.
In the shadow of the Old Guard, it is important for Domestic Reformers and the Returning Diaspora to boost their capacity to lock in democratic reform. Their enhanced influence in domestic politics will help (a) push through the adoption and implementation of the remaining key reforms of the EU Association Agreements in Georgia and Ukraine; (b) reverse the concentration of power and degradation of state institutions in Moldova; and (c) revive the political class of these three countries and introduce new principles and norms of good governance in their political systems.
To encourage and sustain the development and renewal of new elites among Trojan Horses, the Returning Diaspora and Domestic Reformers, the international donor community should:
- Encourage national dialogues on the future of the three states and their societies.
- Support the establishment and practice of local town meetings and public consultations to involve communities in the relevant decision-making processes.
- Support the creation of civic initiatives to encourage a new generation of young people interested in the development of their communities, especially in rural locations.
- Broaden the portfolio of activities of NGOs, watchdogs, think-tanks, investigative media outlets, and unregistered civic initiatives, which promote transparency and monitor accountability of decision-making processes.
- Build capacity of independent monitoring and oversight organizations to keep checks on state power.
- Incentivize established academics and experts educated abroad to, at least temporarily, return to their home countries to boost the effectiveness of educational systems.
- Increase academic exchanges with Western institutions.
- Diversify existing schemes for young professionals to gain experience in Western institutions through internships, job shadowing, fellowships and sabbaticals.
- Fund networking events to develop joint actions between diaspora representatives and local civic activists and experts.
- Support the development of start-ups and information exchange with Western counterparts.
- Strengthen the capacity of independent media outlets and investigative journalism to shape public opinion in various accessible visual formats.
Western donors already support many of these actions, particularly those that target domestic civil society groups and emerging reformers under different bilateral funding schemes or within the framework of the Eastern Partnership. Their continuation is key to increase the sustainable impact of new reformers.
To address structural and institutional impediments to elite renewal, Western actors should:
- Discourage any kind of international engagement of elites who infringe the rule of law, such as working with those suspected of embezzlement, corruption, and the manipulation of law enforcement agencies.
- Advocate the development of contextualized mechanisms to encourage genuine and sustainable internal-party competition.
- Demand that disbursed tranches of finance are repaid when reforms fail or stagnate, as happened with judicial reform in Moldova, to increase the responsibility of national governments.
- Encourage the clean-up of law enforcement agencies (judiciary, prosecution, police and security agencies) to purge them of corruption and undue influence.
- Monitor the implementation of adopted legislation on political finance, paying attention to the enforcement of sanctions.
- Advocate the ban of political advertising to reduce the cost of electoral campaigns.
- Support training and improvement of professional skills of civic activists (e.g. early career investigative journalists and academics) and policymakers.
- Demand the de-monopolization of the media to allow political parties and independent candidates equal access, particularly during electoral campaigns.
- Prioritize higher education on the reform agenda.
- Establish a national-level dialogue between higher education institutions and industries to allow forward planning to consider the needs of the economy.
The international community is already pursuing many of the above recommendations. However, their approach is not always consistent or coordinated. A long-term commitment to underpin the development of the fundamentals of democracy in these countries is necessary to improve governance.