The reform challenge is immense.  Ukraine’s economy is due to shrink by about 8 percent this year, according to the World Bank.   Foreign exchange reserves are nearly tapped out and the currency, the hryvna, has lost half its value against the U.S. dollar.  Ukraine ranks 144 out of 177 on Transparency International’s corruption index.  Corruption has been rife in the judiciary, the tax inspectorate, the prosecutor’s office and nearly every other institution.  

While the Maidan protest was originally sparked by then-President Viktor Yanukovych’s failure to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union, it evolved into a much broader societal demand for an end to the kleptocratic regime he presided over.  Yanukovych has been gone for over nine months, but the institutions he left behind remain largely unreformed.  Now that the election is past, the new coalition has announced a reform plan to take on the challenge.  Failure to implement reforms could lead to another Maidan.          

The Oct. 26 parliamentary election gave President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk a solid mandate: their parties together garnered 45 percent of the party list votes.  The late surge of the strongly reformist “Self Help” party, which received 11 percent (and more than 20 percent in Kyiv), indicated, however, that some in the pro-West camp were concerned that Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk might not move fast or far enough. 

Turnout was relatively low in the mostly Russian-speaking East and South.  In Odessa, turnout was only 40 percent, compared with 70 percent in Western regions like Lviv.   While Russian speakers overwhelmingly reject Russia’s aggression, the discrepancy indicates that more must be done to deepen their connection with the new government in Kyiv.   

While the challenge is enormous, reformers are convinced Ukraine has a real chance.

The Opposition Bloc, made up of erstwhile members of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions (which did not compete in the election), did well in the East.  Nonetheless, former Party of Regions members and sympathizers in the new Rada constitute less than a third of their former level, a major shift.  And even among them, no one is calling for Yanukovych’s return.    

Fallen soldiers and displaced citizens

I observed the election in Kirovograd, in south-central Ukraine, as part of the National Democratic Institute’s monitoring effort. Kirovograd oblast, in Ukraine’s highly fertile “black earth” region, is predominantly Russian speaking but its residents identify strongly with the Ukrainian state.  The central square in Kirovograd city has been renamed Maidan Heroes Square in honor of the “Heavenly Hundred” killed by riot police during the demonstrations in Kyiv in January and February. 

When we visited the regional Deputy Governor the day before the voting, workers in the administration building were in the process of putting up portraits of 70 soldiers from Kirovograd oblast killed by separatists during the fighting in the eastern Donbas region.    Administration staff also showed us the rooms where Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) register and where housing and other benefits are arranged for them.  As of election day, there were 7,000 IDPs registered in Kirovograd.  Many more, we were told, were unregistered.

Voting at the nine polling places our team visited on election day proceeded without incident, as did the vast majority of voting in Ukraine.  Dedicated elections staff – about two-thirds of whom are women -- put in 20-hour days to ensure that all goes smoothly.    About a dozen poll watchers representing the range of political parties and candidates kept a close eye on proceedings at each precinct.       

While nationwide there were no major issues with party list voting, there were instances when candidates for single-mandate seats engaged – or were accused of engaging -- in vote buying.    A district outside Kirovograd city was one of those. In this case, the alleged culprit was an independent candidate with deep pockets and a checkered past -- but no direct ties to Kirovograd.

Three well known journalists/civic activists came to the district to draw attention to his candidacy.  On election day, after the three reported allegations of voter fraud at one precinct, the minivan in which they were riding was blocked by assailants and stoned.   Several windows were smashed; fortunately, none of the occupants was injured.   

'New Citizen'

As it turned out, the candidate the three activists were protesting against won his seat. But he will be joined in the Rada by the three activists themselves, all of whom were highly placed on the Poroshenko Bloc’s electoral list.  They are:  Mustafa Nayeem – the journalist/blogger who made  the initial call on Facebook to convene the EuroMaidan protest in November 2013; Serhiy Leshchenko, a prominent investigative journalist who specializes in unmasking political corruption; and Svitlana Zalishchuk, a veteran of various civic movements, including “Stop Censorship” and “New Citizen.”

Nayeem, Leshchenko and Zalishchuk affirmed to us that they are entering the Rada to propel reform and advance Ukraine’s integration with the EU.  Although elected on the Poroshenko Bloc list, they consider their primary loyalty to the reform effort and not to any political party.   They noted that they and civil society-based reformers from other factions will form a de facto pro-reform lobby within the Rada -- and will not be bought off or silenced.   

Civil society, once at odds with the Rada, is thus now embedded inside it, making this parliament fundamentally different from its predecessors.  While the challenge is enormous, the reformers are convinced Ukraine has a real chance – at long last – to get its act together and, in doing so, strengthen its ability to confront Russian aggression. The stakes could not be higher: nothing less than the survival of an independent Ukraine hangs in the balance.

Colin Cleary is a USIP Interagency Professional in Residence. He previously served as Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. Government.