“NATO and Ukraine’s Politicians: Time for Political Accountability”

The American Institute in Ukraine is pleased to present a press briefing on the publication of a white paper, “NATO and Ukraine’s Politicians: Time for Political Accountability.” AIU Deputy Director James Jatras will release the white paper, present its main findings, and answer questions. Excerpts of the white paper below are embargoed until after the press briefing and attendees will be the first to receive copies of the full report during the presentation.

The event will take place on Wednesday, July 8, at 2 p.m. in the press-center of “Ukrainian News” information agency, Esplanadna str. 20, Kiev.

Specific topics addressed in the AIU white paper and which will be discussed during the press briefing include:

• Accountability of politicians and parties is a key element of a functioning democratic system. The fact that Ukraine’s politicians do not seem to believe their programs constitute a “contract” with the voters is a weakness in Ukraine’s democratic development.
• This weakness is notably acute with respect to the NATO question. While widely called “pro-Western,” not a single Orange politician or party openly has run on a platform of bringing Ukraine into NATO. No doubt this reflects the fact that the pro-NATO position is an unpopular one. Such politicians evidently prefer to duck the question when voters have the opportunity to hold them to their positions, only to try to move their agenda forward by stealth after the vote is over. This is specifically documented with respect to V. Yushchenko and A. Yatseniuk, as well as, somewhat less consistently, Y. Tymoshenko.
• Party of Regions and other opponents of Ukraine's entry into NATO, as well as the media, are faulted for insufficient pressure on pro-NATO politicians to be honest about their attentions. Jatras will propose concrete measures to that effect.

In the white paper, AIU calls for those favoring NATO to be explicit about it in their election program and let the voters judge them on it and states:

“The divergence between what Ukraine’s politicians represent in their programs during elections and what they actually stand for is most observable in foreign and security policies. All too often it appears that Ukraine’s politicians are hesitant to be completely candid with voters by laying out their true intentions for after they come to power.

“On perhaps the most important such questions, over the last two decades of Ukraine as an independent state not a single election platform of any of Ukraine’s political party or presidential candidate has ever declared NATO membership to be its or his/her goal. Consequently, the fact that some politicians have moved towards support for NATO membership after they have come to office has therefore been undertaken without any mandate from voters.

“It is one thing if some of Ukraine’s executive officials favor entry into NATO and say so, both at home and abroad. But it is another thing when they act as if that decision already has been taken and are binding Ukraine in a web of commitments to effectuate that result.”

James Jatras is a principal in a public advocacy firm based in Washington, DC. Prior to entering the private sector he was senior foreign policy adviser to the Republican leadership of the United States Senate. He earlier served as an American Foreign Service Officer, where among other assignments he was assigned to the (then) Office of Soviet Union Affairs. He is a lawyer by profession with bar memberships before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and the Supreme Court of the United States.