The Color Revolutions

Chapter 3. Electoral Breakthroughs

C H A P T E R 3 Electoral Breakthroughs T he images of the Color Revolutions, of young, peaceful demonstrators solemnly standing in the cold, rain, and snow, demanding their voices be heard and that stolen elections not be allowed to stand, of old Communist era rulers being, shuffled in the case of Shevardnadze, literally , off the political stage, and of new energetic regimes replacing moribund kleptocracies, are very powerful, but only tell part of the Color Revolution story. The 2003 parliamentary election in Georgia, the 2004 presidential election in Ukraine, and the 2005 parliamentary election in Kyrgyzstan all occurred in the context of regimes that had been growing weaker and moving away from whatever democratic possibilities had once existed. These regimes were also characterized by increasing corruption, a history of election fraud, and economies that, while slightly improved from the late 1990s, were still characterized by widespread poverty and joblessness. The leadership of all these regimes, however, continued to cling to power, seeking to do whatever was necessary to hold on to that power. The three Color Revolutions followed a similar pattern. In the months preceding each of these elections, a great deal of concern was raised from civil society organizations (CSOs), opposition political parties, and some international organizations that the upcoming elections would not be conducted fairly. In all three elections, the opposition was, at first, dispersed and disunified, but in each case at least a modicum of cooperation between the parties was eventually achieved. However, none of this was enough to stop the government from seeking to commit widespread, obvious, and blatant election fraud. After the elections, relatively peaceful demonstrations of varying sizes Electoral Breakthroughs 45 were held for periods of days or weeks, culminating in either the resignation of the corrupt president and recognition of the new political order or the overturning of election results and recognition of the new political order. These broad similarities should not be left unexamined, but the differences among these cases also help us to understand better the causes of the Color Revolutions, the post-revolutionary developments in each of these countries , and the extent to which Color Revolutions can be treated as a discrete political phenomenon.1 The Color Revolutions themselves were surprisingly brief events. The length of time between the day of the stolen election to the day of the swearing in of the new president ranged from roughly two to six months, but having a sound, if only general, understanding of the events during this period, as well as in the months immediately preceding the election is essential for understanding the Color Revolutions.2 Georgia The 2003 parliamentary election in Georgia promised to be an important test of Georgia’s democratic development as well as of its increasingly unpopular president, Eduard Shevardnadze. The campaigning for these elections, scheduled for late 2003, began almost immediately after the local elections occurred on June 2, 2002. Equally important, the parliamentary elections, while significant in their own right, were also understood as a warm-up or even a primary for the next presidential election, scheduled to occur sometime in spring 2005, in which Shevardnadze would almost certainly not run. The leader of the opposition party that did the best in the 2003 parliamentary election would emerge as an early frontrunner in the presidential campaign. The local elections had demonstrated the broad dislike of Shevarnadze among the Georgian people as well as his political vulnerability. These elections did not, however, winnow the number of opposition parties. As 2003 dawned, several opposition parties planned to compete in the parliamentary election that would determine the makeup of the entire 235 member parliament.3 The majority of these members, 150, would be elected through a single national list system with the seats divided among those parties that met or exceeded the 7 percent threshold. The remaining seats were single mandate seats with one MP being elected from each rayon.4 These rayons ranged substantially in size so that some MPs would represent districts with well over 50,000 people while others would represent less than 20,000. Because the majority of parliament would be chosen through the party list system with a not insurmountable threshold of 7 percent, the structural 46 Chapter 3 incentives for the opposition to unify were not strong. With regard to the single mandate districts, cooperation and coordination rather than unity were needed to ensure that opposition candidates did...