There were high hopes for Ukraine’s prospects to develop into a successful, democratic and economically prosperous state when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Unfortunately, the country has experienced a series of false starts and missed opportunities over the past three decades. Volodymyr Zelenskyy became independent Ukraine’s sixth president on May 20, 2019, bringing renewed hopes for dramatic change that would enable Ukraine to realize its full potential, despite the conflict with Russia.

One year later, however, it is not clear whether his presidency will prove transformational or just another false start.

Ukraine had many attributes for success when it regained independence in 1991, including an educated work force, some of the best agricultural land on the planet, key industries, and proximity to a reforming Central Europe. It has failed to realize that success.

To be sure, democracy in the form of free, fair and competitive elections has taken hold. But reform has lagged in other areas. In 1994, President Leonid Kuchma launched a burst of economic reform, but it faded within a year. In 2000, Kuchma’s appointment of Viktor Yushchenko as prime minister raised reform expectations, but the presidential administration began undercutting Yushchenko in the summer, and he was out in 2001.

Following the 2004 Orange Revolution, Yushchenko became president and twice appointed Yuliya Tymoshenko as prime minister. She had proven the most effective minister in Yushchenko’s cabinet in 2000. However, the two never got on the same track, and Ukraine missed another opportunity.

After the 2013-14 Revolution of Dignity, President Petro Poroshenko posted a good reform record for the first two years of his presidency, but the pace fell off dramatically in 2016. His failure to deal with corruption and get the economy going resulted in his electoral rout in 2019.

Zelenskyy, a political novice, won the April 2019 run-off election with 73 percent of the vote. He took office promising the real fight against corruption that so many Ukrainians wanted. In July 2019, his political party, Servant of the People, won a majority of seats in the Ukrainian parliament. This was the first time any Ukrainian president’s party had commanded a clear majority without the need for coalition partners.

Parliament approved Zelenskyy’s choice for prime minister, Oleksiy Honcharuk, and his cabinet. Most regarded the cabinet as honest and pro-reform, albeit young and relatively inexperienced. The new cabinet set ambitious reform goals. The choice of Ruslan Ryaboshapka as prosecutor general, a position abused by previous presidents to advance political agendas, won plaudits from civil society and anti-corruption activists. Ryaboshapka immediately began cleaning house in the prosecutor general’s office.

In what was termed a “turbo regime,” parliament began churning out legislation last fall, including an end to immunity for parliamentary deputies and a law laying out a mechanism for presidential impeachment. Not all was great. Critics asserted that some laws were ill-prepared in the rush. Meanwhile, factions began to develop within the Servant of the People party that would soon undercut its majority.

A full year after Zelenskyy became president, the picture is mixed. On the plus side, Zelenskyy personally appears honest and has not profited from his office, something that cannot be said about his predecessors. The nature of his relationship with oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskiy, who owns the television channel that broadcast Zelenskyy’s comedy show, posed a major question mark last summer. Zelenskyy now seems to have answered that by breaking dramatically with Kolomoiskiy over newly-passed banking legislation.

On May 13, the Ukrainian parliament approved banking legislation which will block nationalized banks from being returned to former owners. Referred to as the “Anti-Kolomoiskiy Law,” it should frustrate the oligarch’s bid to regain control over (or compensation for) Privatbank, nationalized in 2016 after an audit revealed some $5.5 billion in missing monies. This vote came weeks after MPs passed an agricultural land reform law that will allow Ukrainians to buy farmland, ending a two decades-long moratorium on such sales.

While both laws constitute victories for Ukraine’s reform agenda, getting them through the country’s parliament took longer and proved more difficult than initially anticipated. In the end, defections within Zelenskyy’s own party meant that the Servant of the People faction could not deliver a majority by itself. Instead, the legislation needed supporting votes from two other parties.

The International Monetary Fund had made these two pieces of legislation conditions for a new program of low interest credits for Ukraine. With COVID19 sweeping into the country and playing havoc with the Ukrainian economy, Kyiv’s need for IMF credits seemed a key motivating factor for their passage. (One would like to think that Zelenskyy and his MPs would have backed these laws in any case; too many of Ukraine’s reforms over the past 25 years have come about because of the need for an IMF program and credits.)

Other actions in spring 2020 have raised questions about Zelenskyy’s commitment to reform. He fired Honcharuk and reshuffled much of the cabinet in early March, just six months after the initial appointment of the government. Ryaboshapka stepped down after a parliamentary vote of no confidence and was replaced by a Zelenskyy friend with no prosecutorial experience, raising concerns about the politicization of the prosecutor general’s office.

The new cabinet lacks the reform credentials of its predecessor, and members of the old guard have returned to positions of power. The cabinet has yet to make clear whether and how hard it will press for change.

Other reform efforts have languished. Security sector reform, which has long been called for by both Ukrainian reformers and the country’s friends in the West, has gone nowhere. The leadership of the Security Service of Ukraine appointed by Zelenskyy sees no reason for change. Little has been done with the judicial branch, where corrupt judges have a reputation for selling decisions.

Recently, developments have taken a potentially more ominous turn. As reported by Melinda Haring and Victor Tregubov, dismissed reformers have found themselves under investigation. Ryaboshapka, who reportedly lost favor with Zelenskyy’s team for not prosecuting Poroshenko, now faces criminal proceedings on unspecified charges. Maksym Nefyodov, a reformer who was fired as head of the Customs Service in April, faces a pretrial investigation. Serhiy Verlanov, dismissed as head of the Tax Service, had his apartment searched by security officials. And Artem Sytnyk, head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, is under attack from other government law enforcement agencies.

After just one year in office, it is too early to deliver any definitive judgments on the Zelenskyy presidency. He can still become a transformational figure, but he will have to do better. Zelenskyy should now ask himself: how many chances can Ukraine afford to pass up?

If Zelenskyy, like many of his predecessors, adopts reforms merely to meet IMF conditions, he will miss the opportunity to unleash the country’s economic potential. Investors who could help boost growth will continue to sit on the sidelines waiting for real change, as they have largely done for the past 25 years.

Investigations targeting dismissed reformers will not go down well in the West (reference former Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovych’s bogus trial and jailing of his political rival Yulia Tymoshenko). This, along with any perception of a lack of reform commitment, could help feed a sense of Ukraine fatigue in Europe, just as countries such as Hungary and Italy seek a return to business as usual with Moscow.

Zelenskyy should consider how the approval ratings of his predecessors Yushchenko and Poroshenko plummeted when they failed to meet the reform expectations that brought them to the presidency. He still has time to justify the high hopes generated in spring 2019. If, however, his election turns out to be just another false start, he will most likely become another one-term Ukrainian president.

Steven Pifer is a William Perry Research Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

Originally for Ukraine Alert

[The following article originally appeared in French in Le Soir]

Over the past 20 years of exile, I returned to Morocco sporadically to visit family and friends. Now, I am here indefinitely until the coronavirus pandemic passes. I have observed its effects upon my homeland as not just a proud Moroccan, but also a trained social scientist assessing how the Moroccan state has responded – and how new social dynamics can emerge from it. 

Officially, Moroccan containment and mitigation measures have been described as a model of responsiveness. Notwithstanding testing shortages, and the failure to repatriate Moroccans abroad, new resources like personal protective equipment have been supplied to hospitals. Emergency funds are supporting the economy. The military and security forces have enforced strict quarantine and sheltering policies. Despite that infectious rates are among the highest in Africa, deaths from COVID-19 still remain comparatively low, a reality for which all Moroccans are grateful. 

However, the aggressiveness of these responses stems from a troubling reality. The state moved quickly to contain the pandemic because it could not afford to do otherwise. It already lagged behind in providing basic goods like education and jobs, due to the unbridled neoliberal economic model espoused by national planners for two decades at the expense of social development. The healthcare sector could not absorb even a modest surge in hospitalizations and deaths. In sum, Morocco’s response was optimal given its resources, but suboptimal given its potential. 

Why is this troubling? Not only do medical projections suggest a second wave of the pandemic looms this winter, but there will be more existential threats to come of this type. Climate change will further accentuate these dangers. Further, entire swathes of the Moroccan economy will remain in crisis for the foreseeable future. Vast numbers of the labor force work in the informal sector, the product of unfettered neoliberalism that did not produce any trickle-down effects due to weak rule of law. Grinding inequality means that successful treatments for COVID-19 will not reach most of the population. As Moroccans, we need only to consider the Rif to acknowledge the dangers that lie ahead. 

In the context of this crisis, many Moroccans have put aside standing grievances and put faith in their state. Politically, Moroccans do not labor under the extreme polarization often seen in other Arab countries. True, Morocco does not have the democratic system of Tunisia, where electoral institutions keep things in place. But, neither does it feature the deep schisms of Algeria, where the Hirak protest movement last year exposed the eroding legitimacy of the military and its civilian façade. If anything, Algerian politics will become even more fractured after the pandemic. 

Morocco stands in the middle. Unlike Tunisia, where democratic institutions absorb and mediate this crisis, here the state can only deflect and postpone it. However, neither has Moroccan politics splintered across irreconcilable rifts, partly due to the unifying presence of the monarchy. This gives Moroccans the chance to envision a future of improved governance that compensates for past deficiencies, and leaves us better prepared for future threats. This is not a substitute for genuine pluralism, but it can facilitate its onset. 

Recently, King Mohamed pronounced the prevailing paradigm of economic development to have floundered. As the Chinese proverb holds that with every crisis comes opportunity, we now have an opening to realign it, despite that more hardships will likely ensue as the pandemic continues to have long-lasting consequences. For instance, remittances, long a vital source of economic funding, will decline, as Moroccans abroad will more likely keep their cash close. The tourism sector will take many years to recover. But Morocco can also take advantage of global supply chain disruptions to secure new modes of production. Self-sufficiency and social spending must be priorities. 

Crucially, we cannot merely tweak the neoliberal model in favor of a master turn-key monarchical plan. The focus here falls upon not just the ideas behind national development, but the process through which those ideas come to fruition. Major ruptures that allow such soul- searching are rare in Morocco. One came after the passing of my uncle, King Hassan II, in 1999. A second came with the Arab Spring in 2011. Today marks another such inflection point, which allows all of society sharing common trauma and frustration to step back from the brink. 

That process will not be easy. Many Moroccans have lost faith in political engagement after too many failed reform promises. The Arab Spring’s impetus to demand voice and dignity will become more omnipresent. New social and economic initiatives must be formulated in close concertation with society, through inclusive dialogues that favor participation over top-down imposition. 

The state must avoid succumbing to the huge temptation of stoking false patriotism, or aggrandizing its authoritarian impulse by securitizing the pandemic. For instance, surveillance technologies utilized to ensure social distancing cannot be retooled to suppress political mobilization, as is happening in Russia and China. Indeed, many have wrongly assumed that autocracies are better equipped for the current crisis by comparing China with the US. However, this is a false dichotomy. For every China, there are successful democracies like South Korea and Taiwan where close state-society coordination is mediated not by the army or police, but rather by trust, transparency, and citizen engagement. 

In short, an historical opportunity now presents itself for Morocco; let us not squander it.