If voters in Ukraine elect television star Volodymyr Zelensky president Sunday, as seems almost certain, that should please the Kremlin, which in the course of supporting rebels in the eastern regions of Ukraine has made clear its dislike for incumbent Petro Poroshenko. Zelensky, a political neophyte who plays a teacher unexpectedly elected president in the TV show “Servant of the People,” handily won the first round of the election March 31. Polls suggest he will beat the president in the runoff by as many as 30 points, and to the Kremlin, he must seem like a much more malleable figure.

That doesn’t mean he will be. Champagne corks popped in Moscow in November 2016 when Donald Trump unexpectedly won, and he has been a major disappointment for Putin, who wanted a change in Washington’s Russia policy. Zelensky could foil the Russians in exactly the same way.

Zelensky has no policy track record. During the campaign, he avoided detailed platform proposals, media interviews or political rallies, preferring instead to let his TV persona define his image. He could make mistakes — huge mistakes — as president. But he is no dummy: He built a successful business empire, and he may not be as prone to manipulation as Putin would want.

Read the rest at The Washington Post.

This article originally appeared at Brookings.

Ukraine is halfway through a presidential election: The first round took place on March 31, and the run-off is coming up on April 21. At the annual Kyiv Security Forum and in other conversations in Kyiv last week, I had the opportunity to catch up on the latest developments in Ukraine, and came away with five key observations.

UKRAINE AGAIN SCORES A DEMOCRATIC ELECTION

Ukraine pulled off the March 31 election with no major hitch. Voting and ballot-counting proceeded smoothly. The Central Election Commission’s vote tallies corresponded with exit poll results and a non-governmental parallel count. The International Election Observer Mission (IEOM) released a preliminary assessment that noted some problems but termed the election competitive, reported that candidates campaigned freely, and said that the electorate had a broad choice.

The fact that Ukraine held a free, competitive presidential election should come as no surprise. The previous four presidential votes—the third round of the 2004 election (after the Supreme Court ordered a rerun of the run-off following the Orange Revolution), the general and run-off rounds of the 2010 election, and the 2014 election after the Maidan Revolution—all earned free, fair, and competitive assessments. Another indicator of a free and fair election: While he made it to the run-off, incumbent President Petro Poroshenko came in a distant second.

Sadly, Ukraine’s democratic experience remains a relative rarity in the post-Soviet space. Showing no sense of irony, Russian media cherry-picked criticisms from the IEOM’s assessment to disparage the overall election, yet that election contrasted markedly with the Russian presidential election in 2018. Indeed, in early March, few Ukrainians could say with certainty which two candidates would make it to the run-off; most Russians could have said with certainty who would win their 2018 presidential election as early as 2013.

BARRING A MIRACLE, IT WILL BE PRESIDENT ZELENSKY

TV comedian Volodymyr Zelensky won the first round, capturing 30.24 percent of the popular vote to Poroshenko’s 15.95 percent. Pre-election polls projected a Zelensky win (the question was who would face him in the run-off). His rise since announcing his candidacy in late December is striking. Six or eight months ago, pundits projected a run-off between Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, who came in third.

Poroshenko received more bad news on April 11, with the release of the first polls regarding the run-off. One showed Zelensky ahead 51 percent to 21 percent, with an even bigger lead of 61 percent to 24 percent among those likely to vote. A second poll of those likely to vote gave Zelensky a yet wider margin: 71 percent to 24 percent. Those numbers pose a daunting challenge for the incumbent, who appears competitive only in western Ukraine.

Poroshenko deserves credit for overseeing some impressive reforms, and he has had to cope with a low-intensity war with Russia. Reforms, however, slowed after 2016. Voters felt that Poroshenko had not done enough to fight corruption or challenge the outsized political and economic influence of the country’s oligarchs. He also suffered from an under-performing economy. The electorate wanted change.

It is difficult to see how Poroshenko can turn things around in the short time before Sunday’s run-off, though a few still believe he has a chance. They argue the electorate emotionally cast a protest vote but now must ask who really should lead the country: Poroshenko or a political neophyte.

The president’s campaign has gone negative, seeking to portray the run-off as a choice between Poroshenko and Vladimir Putin. That appears to be having little impact. On the evening of April 11, the president crashed a TV talk show on a pro-Zelensky network and had a brief, bitter telephone exchange with his rival. The episode carried a whiff of desperation. Poroshenko says he wants to debate Zelensky, but the two cannot agree on details. Zelensky did not show up at Poroshenko’s proposed debate on April 14, and the president says he will not turn up at Zelensky’s proposed venue on April 19.

WHO IS ZELENSKY?

Ukrainians and Western diplomats are trying to figure out what a Zelensky presidency would mean. One senior Ukrainian official’s comment—the comedian “is talented and smart, but how will he govern if he wins?”—reflects the views of many.

On television, Zelensky plays a common man thrust unexpectedly into the presidency, where he wages war against the ills that trouble Ukraine. The show is called Sluha Narodu (Servant of the People). During the campaign, Zelensky gave few interviews, held no campaign rallies, and did not lay out positions in any detail, instead letting his television persona define his image.

Zelensky has described in generalities a readiness to negotiate with Putin but with the goal of recovering all Russian-occupied territories; support for joining the European Union and NATO; and a desire to end corruption and fully liberalize the economy. His supporters—who include several noted reformers—describe a Russia-wary, pro-Western candidate who will put fighting corruption at the top of his agenda. Some suggest Zelensky would take a hard line with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its conditions. That could prove tricky. Ukraine needs financing, and no bank matches IMF rates.

Other Ukrainians hold a darker view of a Zelensky presidency. They express concern about his links to Ihor Kolomoisky, an oligarch who owns the network that broadcasts Sluha Narodu. Kolomoisky now resides in Israel after his bank, the largest in Ukraine, was taken over by Ukraine’s central bank following charges of financial improprieties. Critics question Zelensky’s lack of political experience, his ability to deal with Putin, and his commitment to a pro-Western course.

Zelensky reportedly this week will name key members of his team, including the foreign and defense ministers, chief of the general staff, head of the Security Service of Ukraine and procurator general. That could provide indications as to his planned direction.

A debate would provide Zelensky the venue to further define his prospective presidency and allow the country’s voters an opportunity to compare and contrast the positions of the run-off candidates. But a debate likely is not in the cards. Zelensky easily bested his opponents in the first round by avoiding specifics; why change a winning strategy now?

THE RUSSIANS—THE DOG THAT DIDN’T BARK?

Many expected the Russians, who used force to seize and illegally annex Crimea in 2014 and then fostered a simmering conflict in the eastern region of Donbas, to interfere in Ukraine’s election. They undoubtedly did—but with little apparent effect.

Ukrainian officials say Russian hackers had probed the Central Election Commission’s systems but without success. One noted that the Russians seemed more focused on general destabilization of the country rather than the election.

The Kremlin has made clear it wants Poroshenko to be a one-term president. Beyond that, however, Russian officials have taken care not to endorse a particular candidate, perhaps understanding that a “Russian favorite” tag would not prove helpful. Yuriy Boyko, head of the Opposition Bloc—the closest thing in Ukraine to a pro-Russian party—visited Moscow on the eve of the election and returned with a plan to obtain cheaper gas. That might have helped him in the eastern part of the country, from where most of his votes came. He did better than expected but still finished fourth.

The fact that part of Donbas remains occupied by Russian and Russian proxy forces severely hampers the election prospects for someone such as Boyko. The population there, which historically has favored close relations with Russia, could not vote. Nor could the population of Crimea, the only part of Ukraine in which ethnic Russians constitute a majority.

IT’S NOT OVER UNTIL IT’S OVER

Ukrainians will know their next president late on April 21, though the official vote may take a week to report. The winner will be inaugurated no later than 30 days after the Central Election Commission announces the official result. But another national ballot looms on October 27: the Rada (parliament) elections.

The majority coalition that emerges after the new Rada is seated will select the prime minister. Zelensky, if he becomes president, will need to build his political party—named, not coincidentally, Sluha Narodu—to secure a large bloc in the Rada. That matters, as executive power in Ukraine is bifurcated, with the prime minister choosing most of the cabinet. Other parties could see defections from their ranks if Sluha Narodu builds steam, but speculation has already begun about the kind of opposition might emerge.

Some see a possibility that Zelensky might try to force snap elections in order to translate a big win on April 21 into a quick Rada win for Sluha Narodu. However, that does not appear legally possible. The Rada cannot be dismissed within six months of the end of its term. That clock starts ticking in late May, and procedural rules would not allow a newly inaugurated president time to call an early election before the six-month period began.

Politics in Ukraine have never been easy or straightforward, and they have at several points taken radical turns. The country may be entering one such period now. How Zelensky—assuming he wins on Sunday—takes on presidential responsibilities and manages the complex politics that follow will matter greatly for Ukraine’s ability to continue its reform path, deepen integration with Europe, secure peace, and regain occupied territories…all despite Russian efforts to return it to Moscow’s orbit.

Indonesia’s latest and current experiment with democracy is twenty years old. The fifth national election to be held during that period is set to occur on 17 April 2019. More than 190 million Indonesians are eligible to vote. Those who do will elect the country’s president and vice-president and legislators at four different levels—national, provincial, district, and municipal. Since the collapse of General Suharto’s authoritarian regime in 1998, there have been no coups, and the process of campaigning and balloting every five years has proven to be peaceful with remarkably few and small exceptions.  So far so good. 

Regarding the top slot, this fifth election is a re-run of the fourth.  In 2014, Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”) ran for president against Prabowo Subianto and won.  The two men face each other again.  For the 2019 race, Jokowi picked Mar’uf Amin to be his vice-president; Prabowo picked Sandiaga Uno to be his.  All four men are Muslims.

Compared with Prabowo, Jokowi is a man of the people.  Jokowi is the first-ever Indonesian president with a non-elite background.  His first career was not in politics, and not in Indonesia’s megalopolis and capital, Jakarta, but in small business in Central Java.  He made and sold wood furniture in Surakarta, a city a fraction of Jakarta’s size.  He benefited from having begun his political career as Surakarta’s first directly elected mayor.  That post afforded him face-to-face contact with his constituents and gained him popularity based on his success in reforming governance, reducing corruption, and improving public services. 

Jokowi burnished that reputation as the elected governor of Jakarta.  Among his accomplishments on that larger scale were socioeconomic betterment and attention to public transportation.  Construction of Indonesia’s very first subway system began in Jakarta on Jokowi’s watch.  To his political advantage, the project’s first phase—ten miles of underground and elevated track—was completed and opened to the public in March 2019 mere weeks before the national election in April.

Prabowo’s father was a leading figure in Indonesia’s economy, diplomacy, and politics.  Prabowo was schooled in Europe before returning to Indonesia to embark upon a 24-year career in the army.  He rose to the rank of a lieutenant general, but his record was marred by association with violence and insubordination.  Especially brutal were his roles in crushing movements for independence from coercive Indonesian rule in East Timor and Papua and in the abusive repression of democracy activists during riots in Jakarta in 1998. When Indonesia transitioned to democratic rule later that year, he was, in effect, dishonorably discharged.  In 2000 he was denied an American visa, apparently on human rights grounds.  Upon leaving the military, Prabowo began a lucrative career in business. He lost the 2014 presidential election to Jokowi, 47-to-53 percent.

Indonesian Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto addresses to his supporters at the Kridosono stadium during election campaign rally on April 8, 2019 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

Muslims account for an estimated 87 percent of the 269 million people who live in Indonesia, the world’s fourth largest country and the third largest democracy after India and America.  It is mathematically understandable that majoritarian Muslim faith and sentiment might drive the country’s politics.  But Indonesia is not an Islamic state.  Its leaders have, more or less effectively, curated an ethno-religiously plural national identity that legitimates not only Islam but, in theory, Buddhist, Catholic, Confucian, Hindu, and Protestant beliefs as well. 

When Jokowi ran for governor of Jakarta in 2012, his running mate was Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, an ethnic-Chinese Christian Indonesian better known by his nickname “Ahok.”  When the ticket won, Ahok became vice-governor.  A man of probity and candor with a background in business and science, Ahok quickly earned kudos for his efforts to curb poverty, corruption, and traffic congestion, among other ills of the metropolis.  In 2014, when Jokowi took a leave of absence to run for president, Ahok replaced him as the acting governor of Jakarta. When Jokowi defeated Pabowo to become president later that year, Ahok became governor in his own right—the first-ever ethnic Chinese and the first non-Muslim in half a century to fill that position. Sinophobia has a long history in Indonesia. In the context of the economic and political crises that obliged Suharto to resign in 1998, for example, anti-Chinese mobs ran riot in Jakarta.  Prabowo, Suharto’s son-in-law at the time, may have been at least indirectly involved in that outbreak of racial violence.

In a speech in September 2016, Ahok made an unscripted reference to the possibility that, were he to run again, some Muslims might not vote for him.  But all he said was that voters should not believe those who intentionally lie about—misinterpret—verse 51 in Al-Ma’idah, a chapter in the Qur’an that seems to advise Muslims against becoming allies of Jews and Christians.  Some Islamists had indeed glossed that verse as an obligation for Muslims not to vote for a non-Muslim to occupy public office.  An edited version of the video made it sound as though Ahok were not accusing some people of lying about what the verse meant, but was instead blaming the falsehood on the Qur’an itself—Allah’s own words.

The altered video went viral. Extreme Islamist organizations pressed for Ahok’s arrest and imprisonment for having violated Indonesia’s law on the Misuse and Insult of Religion.  He was tried, sentenced, and incarcerated in May 2017.

A man is draped with a flag showing the images of Indonesian President Joao Widodo and his Vice Presidential running mate Ma'ruf Amin at a concert and political rally for President Joko Widodo. Photo by Ed Wray/Getty Images

Ahok regained his freedom in January 2019. When he was released, Jokowi’s and Prabowo’s presidential campaigns had already begun. Six months before, Jokowi’s partisan allies, knowing how closely associated with Ahok their candidate had been, had persuaded him to strengthen his Islamic appeal by choosing Mar’uf Amin to fill the vice-presidential slot on his ticket.  At the time, Amin chaired Indonesia’s if not the world’s largest independent Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama. Amin also headed a state-supported Indonesian Ulama Council that issues rulings ( fatwa ) on Islamic matters.  Under Amin’s leadership in November 2016, the Council had gone so far as to insist, in a statement he signed on the Council’s behalf, that verse 51 in Al-Ma’idah really does forbid Jews and Christians from becoming leaders and does obligate Muslims to choose to be led only by Muslims—and that to deny this is to insult the Qur’an, the ulama, and the Muslim community.  Yet there is nothing in Indonesia’s constitution or its laws that endorses, let alone requires, prejudicial voting—ballot-box communalism—of this kind.

Beyond boosting Jokowi’s image in the eyes of illiberal Muslims, Amin was an attractive choice for two other reasons as well:  NU’s demographic strength, notably in the heavily populated provinces of East and Central Java; and the hoped-for gravitas of Amin’s age and wisdom that some voters might read into his being 76 years old on election day—seventeen more than Jokowi’s 58.

In choosing Sandiago (“Sandi”) Uno for the vice-presidential slot on his ticket, Prabowo may also have taken age into account, but in the reverse direction.  Sixty-seven years old on election day, Prabowo may have chosen his running mate hoping to benefit from the image of relatively youthful energy and savvy modernity that Sandi, eighteen years younger, might evoke in voters’ minds.  Not to mention Sandi’s money.  Forbes Magazine ranked him 27 ^th among the 40 richest Indonesians in 2010, although he has since fallen off that list.  Sandi’s proven ability to attract support, having been elected vice-governor of Jakarta in 2017, likely also favored his selection. 

Sandi has an MBA from George Washington University. Whatever he learned about good business practices while there, however, did not prevent his name from surfacing in the “Paradise Papers” and in research by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, sources that linked him to shell companies registered in Panama, the British Virgin Islands, and other tax-haven locations.

Sandiaga Uno, Vice-Presidential candidate and running mate of Indonesian Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto Waves to supporters after giving a speech at the National Stadium on April 7, 2019 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Photo by Ed Wray/Getty Images.

Prabowo did not excel in his televised debates with Jokowi.  The many polls conducted again and again during the campaign showed Jokowi ahead of Prabowo in the public’s opinion by as much as twenty percent.  As election day neared, the gap between the two men may have narrowed.  But that evidence may have been tainted by unreliable polls that Prabowo’s camp may have incentivized to exaggerate his support. [1]

Prabowo has in the past cultivated relations with Islamist figures and groups. A question to be settled on 17 April is whether Jokowi’s supporters among softer-line, mainstream Muslims and their associations will outvote the harder-line Islamist and more Sinophobic voters to whom Prabowo has appealed.  Relevant, too, is the credulity of voters regarding fake news on social media, including hoaxes designed to stoke fears of Chinese immigration.  One viral claim blamed Jokowi for welcoming investments from China to the point of making Indonesians compete for jobs with an influx of as many as ten million China-born workers. If official Indonesian data are accurate, of 95,335 foreign workers in the country in 2018, only 32,000 were from China. [2]

In the past, Indonesia has been lauded for exemplifying the compatibility of Islam and democracy and for cultivating ethnic tolerance as well.  For democracy to survive and succeed, however, as Americans are learning, it must be continually safeguarded and reconfirmed.  One of the concepts that will crucially affect the further institutionalization of democracy in Indonesia is the extent to which its large and ethnically Malay Muslim majority will be accountable to the country as a whole and not be demagogued into violating minority rights and freedoms.  A populist who inflames his partisan base should not enjoy immunity from oversight. Crucial, too, is the notion of a loyal opposition whose leader is willing and able to reaffirm allegiance to a system in which it has just lost an election fairly.  Additionally essential to the implementation of these core ideas, as polarized Americans are being reminded, is the empathy necessary to bridge identity-based cleavages by imagining oneself in the shoes or sandals of “the other.” 

In any event, one can hope for the best: that the fifth electoral testing of Indonesia’s two-decades-long experiment with democratic rule in 2019, and the 59th American presidential election in 2020, including their respective aftermaths, will reinvigorate the purpose and power of democratic principles as inoculations against the risks, in both countries, of authoritarian division from within.

Donald K. Emmerson last visited Indonesia in December 2018 to speak at the 11th  Bali Democracy Forum.  Without implicating them in the above, he is grateful to Bill Liddle, Wayne Forrest, and Lisa Lee for helpful comments on its first draft.
 

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held a public hearing on Thursday, March 28, 2019, as part of its investigation into Russian influence during and after the 2016 election campaign.

The hearing, "Putin’s Playbook: The Kremlin’s Use of Oligarchs, Money and Intelligence in 2016 and Beyond” included testimony by Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University.

Download Complete Testimony (PDF 263 KB)

EXCERPT

To contain and thwart the malicious effects of “Putinism,” the United States government and the American people must first understand the nature of the threat. This testimony focuses onthe nexus of political and economic power within Russia under Putin’s leadership, and how these domestic practices can be used abroad to advance Putin’s foreign policy agenda. Moreover, it is important to underscore that crony capitalism, property rights provided by the state, bribery, and corruption constitute only a few of many different mechanisms used by Putin in his domestic authority and foreign policy abroad.

This testimony proceeds in three parts. Section I describes the evolution of Putin’s system of government at home, focusing in particular on the relationship between the state and big business. Section II illustrates how Putin seeks to export his ideas and practices abroad. Section III focuses on Putin’s specific foreign policy objective of lifting sanctions on Russian individuals and companies.

Watch the C-SPAN recording of the testimony. 

Media Contact: Ari Chasnoff, Assistant Director for Communications, 650-725-2371, chasnoff@stanford.edu

 "For the first time in American history, a U.S. congressional election was determined by “instant runoff,” using the system of ranked-choice voting that Maine had adopted in a 2016 voter initiative, and then reinstated (over the resistance of the state legislature and much of the state’s professional political class) in a June 2018 “people’s veto” initiative," writes Larry Diamond in The American Interest. Read here.