When Victor Yushchenko accepts the presidency of Ukraine later this month,he’ll have Paul Martin, among others, to thank.

The Prime Minister sent 500 election observers to Ukraine in December towitness the re-run of what appeared to be a stolen presidential election byan ex-communist party apparatchik. I was one of the observers.

Western leaders, including Martin, coveted victory by a more westwardleaning candidate than the autocratic Victor Yanikovich, Yushchenko’srival. In response, Canada sent its largest delegation ever to a foreignelection, helping Victor Yushchenko win the second round. As in life,however, “democracy” is never so simple.

Martin has his own concerns. Canada has over one million people ofUkrainian ancestry living within its borders. Most of these people live inthe West — in places like Edmonton — and the Liberal party is vulnerablethere. Ukrainian Canadians overwhelmingly favour Yushchenko. Some ofthem were part of our delegation. When Canadian domestic politics lined up soperfectly with international ones, the decision for the Prime Minister tosend observers was easy.

The neighbours

The same day as elections were held in Ukraine, the people in Uzbekistan, aformer Soviet state 3,000 kilometers, or 1,875 miles, east of Kiev, electeda new Parliament. Only 21 international observers were watching thoseelections because there wasn’t much interest and there wasn’t much to see.

A victory for the pro-government party was a foregone conclusion becausethere were no opposition candidates. The President has stifled institutionsthat underpin a free and fair electoral process — political parties, mediafreedom, an open atmosphere for civil society organizations and freedom ofassembly.

Azerbaijan’s fraudulent presidential elections last year led to terriblepolitical violence, for which the government has imprisoned many oppositionleaders. I was in Baku for these elections and witnessed publicdemonstrations in Azerbaijan by people trying to express themselves just aspeople had done in Kiev. A protester was beaten to death by police a fewmetres from my hotel.

In Armenia in the spring the government used a variety of arbitrary measuresto prevent massive rallies protesting falsified elections the previous year.Two months ago the government of Kazakhstan rigged the parliamentary vote,resulting in only one opposition party member gaining a seat in the lowerhouse of legislature. A couple of weeks ago not a single oppositioncandidate was elected in Belarus’s parliamentary vote, as polling day fraudkept the opposition out.

Throughout the region, governments control television and try to intimidateindependent print media through defamation suits and outright bullying.Human rights defenders are unlawfully jailed by the authorities and subjectto violent assaults by unknown attackers.

Russia, for its part, regularly cracks down on civil society. PresidentVladimir Putin’s government has seized control over what had been a diverse,if not exactly free, broadcast media and began using it to promotepro-government political candidates and vilify the opposition.

Will Ukraine change?

But in Ukraine the West has a leader that will change all that. At least, wethink.

Like Yanikovich, however, Yushchenko has his own spotty record as PrimeMinister of Ukraine for us to examine.

Under Yushchenko both pensions and wages fell in real terms for retiredpeople and workers respectively. Yanikovich witnessed them rise. And underYushchenko many services were privatized, including several state energysystems, and the results were disastrous, with rising costs and diminishingsupplies. The situation for both workers and the elderly was made worseunder Yushchenko. So, why is he so popular?

His “reformism,” or his liberalizing attitude toward state enterprises,makes Yushchenko attractive to western leaders, including Paul Martin. LikePresident Bush, Prime Minister Martin is a passionate free marketeer,trusting in the market to lift all boats, and averse to state control.(Remember he headed the UN’s team for private sector-led poverty reduction).

While in Ukraine, for example, the Canadian delegation was promised a partyat the Embassy in recognition of our service as volunteers. The party nevermaterialized, at least for those of us without business interests andcontacts in the country. Not quite the “crusade for democracy” that former Prime Minister (and leader of the Canadian delegation) JohnTurner had promised in Ottawa.

Some of the U.S. delegates, for their part, members of the International Republican Institute (IRI), an organization funded by the Republican Party, held firmto the mantra that they were in Ukraine not simply to ensure free and fairelections but also to develop “free enterprise.” While I appreciate the IRI’s candidness, Ukrainians can expect American-style HMOs to replace thepublic health system before too long.

Elections like this breed cynicism in the observer, but even an economistfriend who worked in the Finance Ministry under Yushchenko believes thatUkraine will continue to suffer, even with the change in election results.Yushchenko, he believes, will not improve the conditions for the poor, theelderly or the working class.

But Yushchenko is popular with Ukrainians.

There’s no mistaking young people’s genuine affection for the man headingthe “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine. He’s handsome (when his body is notexcreting poison), clever, and has a model American wife and a foxy advisor, Yulia Tymoshenko.

Whether for these reasons or not, Yushchenko is “less bad than the otherguy,” as my translator assured me. Like my economist friend, the translatoris at least happy to be finally rid of the old regime.

Ukrainians understand, I think, what they’re getting with the arrival ofdemocracy. For the West and for Ukrainians alike, it seems, the electioncame down to this: support the lesser of two evils, support for regime“upgrade,” if you like.

Canada’s Paul Martin and the amused 500 helped make it happen.

But the PM still owes me a party.