Ukraine Must be Concerned by the Sabotage of Elections by Russian Money and by Special Operations

Ukraine must carefully define “decentralization” as their goal and rule out “federalization” of the occupied territories. My own advice would be to exclude from the decentralization process any province demanding federalization.

Timofiy Mylovanov, University of Pittsburgh, Roger Myerson, University of Chicago (Nobel prize laureate 2007), and Gerard Roland, University of California Berkeley – all distinguished economists who follow Ukraine closely – make strong arguments for effective decentralization in Ukraine. A standard argument for political decentralization is that it brings political decision making closer to the people affected. The authors make another case for decentralization as a breeding ground for political leaders.  In a decentralized system, governors, mayors, and local officials can learn politics on the job, and they are incentivized to compile records of success that qualify them for national leadership roles. This is the way the Chinese system has worked, albeit in a non democratic setting. The case in point is the U.S. system, whose governors and mayors have fueled the national leadership for over two centuries.

The authors are rightly concerned that local leaders may engage in corruption, not record building, and they propose to strengthen anti-corruption laws and anti-corruption policing to restrain such activities. I imagine in a decentralized Ukrainian system, some leaders will opt for corruption. They will run the risk of detection and forego advancement opportunities at the national level.  Others will work for the good of the region. I would put more faith in a free press and blogosphere to restrain local corruption than an anti-corruption police force. The EuroMaidan movement is basically Ukraine’s Tea Party. A strong Ukrainian Tea Party movement, ready to take to the streets to protest corruption, would be the best guarantee of effective decentralization. I do not know the extent to which this movement is active today, but it is Ukraine’s best chance for success.

Effective decentralization hinges on who the local officials are. In order to establish credibility, they must be elected. As we know from elections elsewhere, elections are affected by money and by outright and clandestine activities of organized groups. Ukraine must be therefore concerned by the sabotage of elections by Russian money and by Russian special operations. A strong investigative press and a Ukrainian intelligence service that communicates its findings to the people are needed to prevent the stealing of local and regional elections by Russia, a gambit that Russia is sure to follow.

Of course, the most troublesome issue with respect to decentralization is the occupied territories of the Donbas. There is no chance for real elections in these areas. All elected officials would be Russian puppets, demanding “federalization,” namely veto rights over any substantive national policy. Ukraine must carefully define “decentralization” as their goal and rule out “federalization” of the occupied territories. My own advice would be to exclude from the decentralization process any province demanding federalization.

The reform process currently underway at the national level will ultimately determine the success of decentralization. Without successful de-oligarchization, liberalization of energy markets, lustration, and reconstitution of the judiciary, decentralization will not work in practice.

Mylovanov, Myerson, and Roland make a powerful case for decentralization. Let us hope that outside forces with leverage, such as the European Union and International Monetary Fund, make decentralization as part of their conditionality terms. They must also be careful to insure that the resulting decentralization is not one in name only.