Ukraine is a country that doesn’t crop up too often in our daily conversations or in the British media. Hence, its political affairs aren’t widely known in the UK. Therefore, the man I have selected as my political hero may be a little less familiar than some of the previous entries in this column. This is someone who would go on to become President of Ukraine, introducing pro-western democracy to a nation that had not had a happy history – Viktor Yushchenko.
Born in 1954 to school-teacher parents, he was brought up in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (the official name of Ukraine when it was a part of the Soviet Union). After graduating from university with a finance degree, he gained employment in the banking sector, working for the Soviet Union’s state bank, where he quickly climbed the ranks and gained a top deputy-director position. When the Soviet Union collapsed, in the early 1990s, Ukraine was hit hard. Its economy plummeted into a massive recession, leading to a soaring inflation rate that peaked at over 10,000%. By this time, Yushchenko was the head of the Ukrainian National Bank, and he decided to initiate a new currency in the failing country – the Hryvnia. From here, things got better, and inflation dropped to a mere 10% in just a few years.
In 1999, he was made Prime Minister of Ukraine by then-President Leonid Kuchma. While in office, Yushchenko brought about remarkable changes to Ukraine’s government; he successfully wiped millions of dollars off the national debt and built a great level of trust between the government and the people. However, the President and his inner circle disapproved of Yushchenko’s openness about the government, which was reportedly widely corrupt, and in 2001, ousted Yushchenko from his job. Over the next two years, he remained politically active and formed the ‘Our Ukraine’ party, which was dedicated to introducing a democratic government to Ukraine, and in 2004, decided to run for President. Current President Kuchma, who had been accused of murder and severe corruption, did not support this, and launched a campaign against him. This was a major blow for Yushchenko, and things went from bad to worse for this politician, who was now extremely popular with the people. In September 2004, weeks before the election was due to take place, Yushchenko was poisoned with the deadly poison dioxin, supposedly during a dinner with government officials who were opposed to him. Although this assassination attempt left him gravely ill, with temporary facial paralysis, he heroically pressed on with his presidential campaign. The election took place, and the winner was announced as the candidate supported by the current Ukrainian government and their Russian allies – Viktor Yanukovych (note – this is a separate person to Yushchenko!). However, the election was rigged, with evidence showing irregularities in the voting system. This included one case in which coachloads of people, who were opposed to Yushchenko’s democracy campaign, had reportedly been allowed to vote more than once. This sparked massive protests in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, in a movement known as the Orange Revolution, so called because of the official colour of Yushchenko’s ‘Our Ukraine’ party. Eventually, a re-election was demanded by the state supreme court, and this ended with a landslide win for Yushchenko, who became the first freely elected President in Ukraine’s history.
Like so many other world leaders, his pre-election popularity did not last, such to an extent that his party only gained 5.5% of the votes in the next Presidential elections in 2010. But the reason I see him as a political hero is because he achieved something that so many thought was impossible – he achieved his goal of making a democratic Ukraine; a nation that retains fairly strong diplomatic relations with the West to this day.
