Ukraine has just completed the first round of voting in a historic election for President. The old conservative Soviet era clique is back, after seeming to have been rejected by the people in the previous 2004 election. The people back then took to the streets in peaceful protest against a corrupt and authoritarian President – sadly the very one who has come out in front in this election – and forced a new election in which he was trounced.

What a difference a few years can make. Five years ago, Ukraine was alive with the promise of this Orange Revolution, which saw the democratic overthrow of the old, corrupt, Russian aligned Party of the Regions headed by the despotic Vicktor Yanukovych. Young people gained prominence as activists and democrats became the toast of the media. One of the highest profile supporters of his Orange Revolution was George Soros, who previously played a large role in the success of the pro-democracy movement in Poland with considerable success. He reached out to and provided support for the people who yearned for change.

After weeks of protests, Orange revolution leader Vicktor Yushchenko handily beat Yanukovych in the heavily monitored second election after the first was struck down by the courts because of widespread corrupt voting practices. The latter in his previous term as President was widely despised for his close ties with rich oligarchs who had become wealthy through the hand over of state assets to them and their cronies. Most of these oligarchs come from the eastern regions of the country in which people of Russian descent make up the majority. Their control over the Government of Ukraine was sustained through a system of intimidation, government favours and state power over institutions that owed much to the tactics of the Soviet system that prevailed prior to 1989.

While Yushchenko’s 2004 win was seen in the West as a victory by democratic forces. That view was not shared in Russia. There it was seen as part of a western effort to extend the zone of western influence into the previous zone of influence and over previous allies of Moscow.

Yushchenko failed to live up to the promise that people believed he offered five years ago. The majority of citizens of the Ukraine, particularly in the western parts of the country dominated by ethnic Ukranians, believed that he would break the old reliance on Russia, the tight association with the Russian speaking oligarchs, and the corruption of elections to thwart the expression of the people’s will. All of these were part of the promise of the historic 2004 elections. Instead, his presidency was marked by a worsening of economic conditions, continued corruption, stand offs with Russia over gas supplies and trade, and a failure to achieve unity with the European Community and NATO.

Sadly, the simple fact is that Yushchenko governed badly. He lost the support of the people. He fought with this key potential allies, including Yulia Tymoshenko.

This election, Yanukovych received over 35 per cent, current Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko 25 per cent, and Yushchenko a mere 5 per cent in Mondays’s election. The main factors were Yushchenko’s inability to sustain a coalition with Tymoshenko, the third dominate Ukraine personality of this decade and the charismatic leader of a faction that has managed to be agile enough to avoid entrapment by either of the other parties, his constant conflicts with Russia that appear to always leave Ukraine the loser, and his own abrasive personality.

Tymoshenko took most of the votes of the supporters of the Orange Revolution. She has given the appearance of favouring many of the democratic instincts of Yushchenko while avoiding the appearance of opposition to Russian influence. Today, while having many policy and personal conflicts, Tymoshenko and Yanukovych share similar positions on relations with Russia. Both argue that Ukraine can’t get along without good relations with Russian and blame Yushchenko for undermining Ukraine’s prospects by constant conflicts with Russia. Yanukovych promises that Ukraine’s will not pursue a NATO bid and will make Russian a second official language alongside Ukrainian. With great fanfare and much popular support, Tymoshenko made a deal last year with Russia to accept the shipment of Russian gas through Ukraine for European markets, something Yushchenko was never able to do.

The big loser is the Ukraine people. Democracy has a lot of respect after the failures of the last five years, and the resistance to corruption and autocratic government is much weakened as a political force. The young, so motivated the last time, are disillusioned and feel disenfranchised. The west has also been rebuked.

Regardless of who of the leading candidates from this round win the next round, Ukraine will once again be a Russian satellite, heavily influenced by Russian approaches to policy and interests. None of that is good. Part of the blame lies with the West which failed to pay nearly enough attention to Ukraine after the 2004 election. The US in particular became obsessed with Iraq, with unfortunate results for Ukraine.

The promise of the Orange Revolution can never be restored. That is a shame. The question now is whether Ukraine will ever find the democratic, western, progressive politics of Poland and other former Soviet nations.

Redemption is a very human process through which those who have erred renew their social value through acknowledgment. reflection and revealed learning. It is a process through which people of recognized value to society who have failed in their social responsibility regain their ability to contribute. It confirms that error does not discredit all that one knows and understands, provided error is seen and understood.

For at least twenty years, the economics profession enjoyed a kind of triumphalistic hegemony in policy that permitted no dissenters. While it was disturbing and frustrating to those with practical knowledge, it was hard to fight. The profession expressed such certainty and such superiority as to make disagreement intolerable. It was a time of a kind of intellectual hegemony.

We can now see that its knowledge claims were essentially ideological, based on beliefs that defined what was correct thinking and what was not. Markets were efficient, Keynesian economics wrong, monetary rules and inflation targets the only possible macro economic goals, regulation useless and unnecessary, welfare social madness, and government action sure to fail due to rational expectations. Dissenters from these views were not only wrong, but apostates. They must be and were systematically discredited and pushed to the margins.

I well remember moderate views like mine on these matters being subject to condescending disdain by the very economists who work in the institution I am now part of. While I never subscribed to the classical left views, this was not enough. Moderate views were taken as a failure of intellectual rigour. A commitment to markets, deregulation, and smaller government were not just truth but character tests.

Many have paid the price for the monopoly these views gained over policy. The recent economic disaster need not have occurred had the views of economists been more moderate, reasonable and balanced, and had they not abandoned a once vigorous commitment to observation and science. For many of us, the question is whether there is any real reflection about and review of these views by those in the profession.

So far there is little evidence of regret or even error on the part of the profession. The smartest and the brightest have begun to try to understand why government action was necessary and is now working, but most are largely defensive and in denial, stuck in their old ways of thinking. That is regrettable. While it is perhaps not surprising that the process of redemption and renewal is beyond the reach of most people who so over-reached themselves, it is surprising that few in this profession have even ventured to begin the process. It suggests that this once honourable profession is incapable of confronting its own failures. Without that, it is almost sure to never regain its once dominant position in public life. Redemption is beyond its reach. Which is not uncharacteristic of those who succumb to ideology. Sad but true.

The CBC reports that PQ culture critic Pierre Curzi is calling on the Quebec government to invoke the notwithstanding clause. The Parti Québécois is urging the Quebec government to use the ‘notwithstanding clause’ to limit access to private English schools after the Supreme Court quashed Bill 104, part of the province’s language legislation.

Bill 104 had closed a loophole allowing children not eligible for the English-language public school system to gain access by first spending time in a private English school. Rights in the constitution guarantee the right of tuition free attendance at English publicly financed schools if children’s parents have received most of their education in Canadian English schools or the children have had an English language education.

But the Supreme Court struck down Bill 104 in a ruling recently. It said in its decision that Bill 104’s purposes were acceptable in that the parents involved were exploiting an administrative loophole, However it said that the approach to closing the loophole should have been different. Rather than setting a general rule blocking the right of continuing attendance at English publicly financed schools if a student attend a private English school solely to gain admittance to the English public system, the Court said the government should rule on a case by case basis for each school and each student based on their motives for operating or attending the school.

I wrote a few days ago that the Supreme Court was in error in its ruling. (see http://www.policycentre.ca/2009/10/27/934/). The Court should not tell provinces how to administer education policy that is justified. This is meddling in administrative policy which is well beyond the competence of the Court. The solution that the Court suggests is an administrative nightmare and frankly stupid. Bill 104 is a much better approach and should have been left alone.

It is hard not to be sympathetic to the PQ case. If the Court insists on this kind of activist stance, resulting in silly interventions in policy, it may be time for governments to use the clause, as much as it is disliked. This might have a sobering affect on the Supreme Court when it is tempted to step into policy matters beyond its competence.