By Peter Dickinson
Chief Editor, Business Ukraine
Three years ago Yulia Tymoshenko burst onto the world scene as the improbably attractive and iconic hero of the Orange Revolution. She has since lost office spectacularly and seen her international profile drop almost from view before returning to power on a wave of popular support. As she approaches the hundred day mark of her new administration, just what does the rest of the world think about Ukraine’s remarkable PM?
The return to office of Tymoshenko and her team has not yet been afforded the kind of fanfare which accompanied the Orange dawn of 2005, with most observers preferring to remain cautious about the possibility of reform and stable government in a country which has spent the last three years in a state of near-constant turmoil. However, while caution continues to dominate coverage of the current Ukrainian administration, attention is predictably focusing on the words and deeds of the Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whose iconic appearance and fiery rhetoric first shot her to world fame during the 2004 Orange Revolution and have helped make her one of the most recognisable politicians in eastern Europe.
Forgotten goddess of the revolution
Since 2004 Tymoshenko’s political fortunes have ebbed and flowed and her international image has fluctuated accordingly. In 2005 Forbes magazine rated Tymoshenko their 3rd most powerful woman in the world, though once out of office and in the opposition in 2006 she didn’t even make it into the top 100.
The firing of Tymoshenko from her post as PM by President Yushchenko in September 2005 did huge damage to her international reputation and she has been slow to recover lost ground. Neil Pattie, a communications consultant who began working with Tymoshenko and BYUT just after she was removed from power in 2005 recalls the long road back to credibility. “I began working with Tymoshenko not long after she’d been fired by President Yushchenko. I think her international image, for a variety of reasons, has improved dramatically over the past two and a half years, but it was at its lowest ebb in September 2005,” he remembers.
Part of the problem Tymoshenko has faced in rehabilitating her image since the great reversal of 2005 has been rooted in the general lack of interest in Ukraine that continues to prevail among international policy makers. “Ukraine is still perceived by many as a backwater, and so the West has very little bandwidth available for understanding Ukraine and Ukrainian politicians,” Pattie argues. “Yushchenko was always seen as the face of the Orange Revolution with Tymoshenko as the sidekick, the beautiful orator by his side. I don’t think people really understood Tymoshenko at the time and what policies she stood for,” he says.
Accusations of populism
Pattie believes that political opponents have used the media to help sully Tymoshenko’s image in the West, playing on the 2005 sacking and casting her time in government in as unfavourable a light as possible. “I think that at the time there was a very conscious black campaign against Tymoshenko. She was portrayed as reckless with the economy, a headstrong populist and rabble rouser. Many people had a jaundiced view of her then and she remains dogged to this day by that populist tag,” he says.
Nevertheless Pattie argues that what many regard as Tymoshenko’s consistent positions and policies over the past two years while in opposition have persuaded former critics to give her the benefit of the doubt. He remains optimistic that the trend will continue. “Successive elections have forced more focus to be put onto Ukraine and caused journalists to dig deeper and actually understand the story more. The more they understand the story and look into the individuals involved, the more it will benefit Tymoshenko,” Pattie states.
We remain within the first hundred days of her new administration but Pattie nevertheless claims to have noticed a recent change in coverage that appears to be working in Tymoshenko’s favour. “Western European journalists and opinion makers have certainly shifted their views on Tymoshenko, and the same thing is happening in America,” he argues, citing a recent piece by the former Tymoshenko critic and post-Soviet expert Anders Aslund which praised the early steps taken by the new administration as evidence of this much improved image. “I genuinely don’t believe that many people still regard her as a populist now,” he adds, “and that certainly wasn’t the case back in 2005.”
Embracing the bear
Unsurprisingly, the land where Tymoshenko faces the most obstacles to making a good impression is Russia. Tymoshenko’s role in the Orange Revolution and biting anti-Kremlin invective, which has included suggestions that Russia itself is ready for its own colour revolution, have made her a target of the regime’s spin doctors. She is well aware of the often negative portrayal she receives throughout Russia’s state-controlled media, telling journalists prior to her February Moscow summit, “even the children are afraid of me in Russia.”
Tymoshenko’s wrangles with Russia have also involved the politician being placed on Moscow’s Interpol wanted list and seen her likeness appear in a pornographic movie produced by a member of the Russian state Duma. Tymoshenko has returned fire as an outspoken critic of Ukraine’s murky Russian energy ties and last year also penned an essay titled “Containing Russia” in the influential publication Foreign Affairs which is said to have sent the Kremlin into a rage. However, not everyone in Russia is ready to buy into the official government-approved assaults on Tymoshenko.
Russian native Mikhail Krutikhin, a partner with RusEnergy consulting agency has been particularly impressed by her handling of the recent gas crisis. “I have great respect for that lady, especially after the recent agreements with Gazprom. To force Gazprom and two ‘middlemen’ to give up a source of good money is a serious achievement, especially considering who she was up against. She not only came out of it a winner, but she also managed to resolve the situation on a quite civilised ‘win-win’ basis through mutual concessions, not through ultimatums.”
What stands behind the polished image?
Natasha Timakova, an analyst with a Moscow-based oil and gas consulting agency, says she is one of many Russians who is taken by the packaging of the Yulia product but continue to question the sincerity behind the marketing. “I like her image and PR: her campaigning is the most effective of all Russian and Ukrainian PR campaigns. She is definitely the most charismatic personality on Ukraine’s Mount Olympus, but the question is what is behind all that, what is in her mind. She seems guided by her own interests more than the interests of her homeland.”
Marina Borko, an analyst with another Moscow-based oil and gas consulting agency, explains that many Russians tend to view Ukrainian politics as a repeat of the Russian experience of the 1990s and as such are not overly concerned with the individual players involved, preferring to adopt a broader view. “My boss has said that Tymoshenko is a great actress, but that she cannot be trusted. He also supports the view that Ukraine is simply repeating Russia’s path with a certain delay in time, which is quite a common opinion among Russians. Basically they think that current events in Ukraine are similar to what took place in Russia in the earliest days of Yeltsin’s rule.”
Guarding the eastern frontier
Elsewhere in eastern Europe Tymoshenko is generally well-received, in part due to the widespread sympathy throughout the region for Ukraine’s Orange ambitions of reform and European integration. Paulius Kuncinas, Regional Editor with Oxford Business Group, sees support for her tough energy stances as key to her regional popularity. “Tymoshenko’s image in central and eastern Europe was primarily shaped by the events during the Orange revolution. She is perceived as force for change and reform and a politician capable of taking on Russia especially in energy issues. This has endeared her to countries such as Poland and the Baltics which have their own geopolitical and energy battles with Moscow. The press in countries like Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey often comment on the Tymoshenko phenomenon as a rare example of a woman rising through the ranks of a male-dominated political scene. She is sometimes described as uncompromising and populist as well as capable of bringing Ukraine closer to the European fold.”
From prisoner to reformist darling
All this is a long way away from the frail figure who first appeared in the international headlines following her imprisonment in 2001, forlorn but defiant, dark-haired and without makeup but still strikingly photogenic nonetheless. Tymoshenko’s detention by the Kuchma regime proved a watershed in her political career. While prior to her arrest Tymoshenko had worked as a reformist within the Kuchma government, upon her release she became an outspoken opposition leader and scathing critic of corruption among the ruling regime. It is no coincidence that shortly after she was freed from Lukyanivka prison in spring 2001 she first adopted her distinctive braided hairstyle, marking her transformation from glamorous government reformer to unofficial opposition leader and people’s champion.
Ukraine commentator and scholar Taras Kuzio has closely monitored the transformation of Ukraine’s leading lady from jailed opposition figure to international political heavyweight and points out how perceptions of her relationship with Yushchenko in particular have altered over the years. “Yulia Tymoshenko’s image has undergone a remarkable transformation since the Orange Revolution,” he notes. “In Leonid Kuchma’s second term she led the opposition to his regime and this was reciprocated by her imprisonment and a black publicity campaign which left her with a negative image. At the time Viktor Yushchenko, who was forced into becoming a reluctant opposition leader, had high positive ratings which enabled him to win the 2004 elections.
“Four years on, the Tymoshenko-Yushchenko image has been reversed. Tymoshenko’s image is now positive and Yushchenko’s clouded both in Ukraine and the West. Tymoshenko’s consistent messaging, coupled with a successful February 2007 visit to Washington and multiple trips to European capitals, has turned her international profile around. Today she is viewed on both sides of the Atlantic by governments, think tanks and the media as Ukraine’s true reformer.”
Kuzio claims that Tymoshenko has benefited from an erosion of faith in the reformist abilities of Viktor Yushchenko, who has tried the patience of the Western world with his repeated compromises. “While it is still only discussed privately, the West has practically given up on Yushchenko (they never had any illusions about Viktor Yanukovych),” Kuzio argues. “Allegations of the President's association with RosUkrEnergo, his reliance on his chief of staff Viktor Baloha, his inability to push forward in battling corruption or improving the rule of law, and his embrace of oligarchs and Yanukovich in a variety of contexts, have all served to undercut Yushchenko's image in the West. From the point of view of the West, Tymoshenko has been on track as pro-business, pro-reform, and the only real advocate of combating corruption, especially in the energy sector. She has dismissed the fears of populist economic policies and nationalisation of industry that dogged her in 2005 and has pushed hardest for privatisation since returning as Prime Minister.”
Energising the integration drive
One of the biggest pluses of Tymoshenko’s return to government in recent months in the eyes of the outside world has been the injection of a new dynamic in Ukrainian politics.
“Tymoshenko broke through the stalemate on WTO, clearing the way for Ukraine’s February 2008 accession. She has been working hard for a deeper relationship with the EU, to include a Deep Free Trade Agreement that will lead to EU membership,” Kuzio states optimistically.
“Tymoshenko’s image as a radical reformer in the mould of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party was confirmed with the membership of the Fatherland Party that she leads in the European Parliament’s European Peoples Party group. Aligning Fatherland and her eponymous bloc, BYUT, alongside the Western European centre-right was a statement of direction for her political force which assured governments and businesses alike,” Kuzio offers.
“From a foreign direct investment standpoint, there are high hopes for Tymoshenko to level the playing field vis-à-vis foreign direct investment. The government’s engagement with the European Business Association and the American Chamber of Commerce has been met with enthusiasm by the business community. The West sees that she is acting on her election promises and that Tymoshenko has changed her image, not only her words.”
Charming Washington and Brussels
Kuzio believes that Tymoshenko’s charismatic personality has played a big role in winning over the skeptics in both Brussels and Washington, as the impact of recent personal visits has demonstrated. “The political charisma of Tymoshenko in re-formulating her international image is undeniable,” he states. “Following her visit to Washington even her staunchest critics were enamored, not only by her presence but also by her ability to speak directly to the issues at hand. Her profile was contrasted to the stiff images and personas of other Ukrainian politicians traveling abroad who, unlike Tymoshenko, could not deal deftly with often difficult questions in public forums. In the US, her open, direct manner, coupled with her command of the issues, changed her image. In Europe it was the vision of an elegantly dressed Eastern revolutionary along with consistent messaging on Ukraine’s European aspirations and energy security that assisted in changing her image.”
Ultimately, perceptions of Tymoshenko will be coloured by attitudes towards Ukraine and the crucial role it plays in securing Europe’s energy lifeline to Russian gas fields. “Tymoshenko¹s willingness to stand up to Russia on behalf of Ukraine's national interests, while attempting to build a pragmatic relationship with Moscow, has won her respect,” Kuzio concludes. “Perhaps the key issue has been Tymoshenko’s defence of Ukraine’s national interests, which is not seen as cheap anti-Russian sentiment. Indeed, from US Vice President Dick Cheney to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Tymoshenko has elevated herself as the key politician and future power player in the region.”
