THE IMPACT OF SEMI-PRESIDENTIALISM ON DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION: CASES OF POLAND AND UKRAINE Oleksii Sydorchuk Analyst of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation [ ] 2 ABSTRACT This paper aims at distinguishing features of Polish semi-presidentialism which could be applied to Ukraine in order to make its institutional system more favorable for democratic consolidation. In order to reach this aim, this paper compares relative influence of semi-presidential form of government on democratic consolidation of the two countries, evaluating both general impact of this model of power distribution and separate roles of its main institutions – president, parliament, and cabinet. Conclusions from the conducted comparative analysis are used to find possible institutional options for Ukraine, which are then considered from position of their expected influence on democratic consolidation process. After choosing the best possible option in each category, they are discussed in more details. The paper finishes with summary of the main findings and concluding remarks on prospects of implementation of the mentioned institutional recommendations. INTRODUCTION Since 2010, Ukraine has started formidable slide towards authoritarianism, quickly losing its status of the most talented student of democracy among former Soviet Union republics and coming dangerously close to authoritarian Belarus. Moreover, recent political developments in Ukraine urged some observers to think whether they have overestimated the importance of the 2005-2009 period. After all, the visible political liberalization during that time did not prevent Ukraine’s institutional system from reversing its trend of development in just few months. However, the question remains: what were the main reasons behind such vulnerability of Ukrainian political institutions to authoritarian tendencies of popularly elected president? One of the possible explaining could be traced back to the previous periods of democratic development of Ukraine. Indeed, Ukraine has struggled with consolidating its democratic gains throughout 1990s and 2000s, never reaching the Western standards of democracy as “the only game in town”. At the same time, interaction of main political actors in Ukraine was constantly taking place under the framework of semi-presidential form of government (with the brief exception of the 1995-1996 period), albeit in two different incarnations. Therefore, is it possible to say that semi-presidential was responsible for the failures of democratic consolidation in Ukraine during its independence period? Was it one of the main factors that could explain such outcome of Ukraine’s political development? Alternatively, was it designed not well enough to prevent Ukraine from getting stuck somewhere along the road from authoritarianism to democracy? All of these questions could be even more ambiguous if to take into consideration the experience of Ukraine’s Western neighbor – Poland. Both countries had some remarkable similarities at the outset of their post-communist transition; however, after 20 years of political development, they are now on very different levels of democratic development. What could be even more surprising is that the two countries have adopted quite similar model of power distribution: both institutional systems fall into the semi-presidential framework. While the constitutional variations of Polish and Ukrainian semi-presidentialism were different, both countries have retained this form of government, at least formally, until now. 3 Having said that, it is quite naturally to proceed to another question: why did semi- presidentialism in Poland and Ukraine lead to different outcomes in their democratic consolidation? Was it different institutional features of this form of government that influenced the democratic development of the two countries differently? If this is true, is it possible for Ukraine to adopt some Polish features of semi-presidentialism in order to make its institutional system more favorable for democratic development? Or, maybe, the situation is much simpler: what if semi-presidentialism was just an irrelevant variable that was not responsible for the democratic successes and failures of Poland and Ukraine? Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to understand how institutional framework of semi- presidentialism influenced the process of democratic consolidation of the two countries. The main question which inevitable arises in relation to the stated aim is why semi-presidential institutional model contributed to – or, at lest, did not hampered – establishment of liberal democracy of Western type in Poland, while similar form of government, albeit with some remarkable differences in distribution of power between main political institutions, in Ukraine did not lead to the consolidation of its democratic gains. The second key issue which will be addressed in this paper will touch upon possible recommendations on how to use the experience of Polish semi-presidentialism in the case of Ukraine, i.e. what features of Poland’s institutional system could be successfully applied to that of Ukraine in order to make it more favorable for the process of democratic consolidation. The paper will be based both on scholarly research and on expert interviews, thus combining theoretical and empirical components. The paper will use two main middle-range theories. First – theory of semi-presidentialism as a distinct form of government (different from parliamentary and presidential systems), introduced by Maurice Duverger and since then developed by numerous scholars. According to their views, Poland and Ukraine fall into category of semi-presidential countries, since both have popularly elected fixed-term president which coexists with cabinet responsible to parliament (Elgie 1999, 13). However, in order to evade dangers of formal legal approach, the real interaction of political actors embodied in corresponding institutions would also be taken into consideration. In other words, the form of government would be analyzed not as a hardened display of constitutional provisions but as ever-changing and fluctuating process of cooperation and conflict between president, parliament and cabinet. Second – theory of democratization, which distinguishes processes of democratic transition and democratic consolidation. The main focus will be made on the latter, since the real differences in development of Poland and Ukraine manifested itself exactly during the period of consolidation of newly established democracy. Expert opinion will be used as a main basis for the development of recommendations, which could be applied to Ukrainian case. Therefore, the interviews will mainly touch upon Polish experience as an example of history of success, comparing to Ukraine. The paper will be structured as follows. In the first section, a brief historical overview of institutional development of independent Poland and Ukraine will be given, followed by comparative analysis of influence of semi-presidential form of government on democratic 4 consolidation of the two countries. In order to make it more digestible, this section will be divided into several more sections, based on different periods of institutional development of Poland and Ukraine. The second section will contain recommendations for the Ukrainian institutional system on how to make it more favorable for democratic development using the Polish experience. Finally, main conclusions of the paper will be presented, as well as several insights about possible connected issues which could be examined in the future. SEMI-PRESIDENTILIASM AND DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION IN POLAND AND UKRAINE Turbulent years of early post-communist period The first thing about different paths towards democracy in Poland and Ukraine which catches one’s eye is that Poland started its democratic transition two years earlier. In February 1989, members of communist establishment and oppositional Solidarity trade union started negotiations on further political development of the state. While the economic situation in the country was deteriorating and the legitimacy of ruling Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) was waning, the government of communist Poland realized the necessity to make concessions to Solidarity movement which represented the united opposition. The negotiations resulted in the recognition of Solidarity, introduction of presidential office, and elections to both lower and upper chamber of Polish parliament (Sejm and Senate, respectively). However, only elections to Senate were totally free, while 65% of Sejm mandates were guaranteed to the members of PZPR and its allies. As a result, Solidarity won all freely contested seats in Sejm and 99 of 100 seats in Senate. According to another agreement reached during the round table talks, both chambers of parliament elected communist leader Wojciech Jaruzelski as the first president. However, communists were unable to secure enough votes to appoint their own prime minister, so a lot of them joined Solidarity deputies in voting for the first non-communist prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki. With the diminishing support of PZPR, Jaruzelski decided to resign, and first general election of president took place in December 1990. Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa triumphed in the second round, becoming the first directly elected president of Poland. First totally free elections in Poland quickly created a precedent which, complemented by growing popularity of Solidarity and general dissatisfaction with