Part of the
blame for the political crisis in Ukraine, which has provided a pretext for the
Hitlerian moves on Ukraine by Russia, can be assigned to an American. His name
is Paul J. Manafort, and his contribution to the crisis was helping Viktor Yanukovych
convince a majority of the Ukrainian electorate that he was someone he was not.
In short, Manafort helped the corrupt and autocratic Yanukovych lie his way to
electoral success.
The 2004 Presidential Campaign in
Ukraine
In the last part
of 2004, Yanukovych – with the help of a few rich and powerful friends – tried to steal the Ukrainian presidential election. The brazen effort caused a
backlash, with a large contingent of Ukrainian citizens rebelling against this
subversion of democracy. The resulting Orange Revolution led to a court
decision overturning the election, requiring a new vote. In the election that
followed, Yanukovych and his Party of the Regions were decisively defeated.
The
Yanukovych who ran in the 2004 election has been described as a typical
Soviet-style boss, the kind used to giving orders, being shown deference, and
telling people how they should think. He certainly looked the Soviet boss with
his bouffant hairstyle, “funeral black suits and white shirts.”[Page 2006] His true nature was evident in speeches in
which he employed prison slang, learned when as a young thug he had twice been
convicted of armed robbery and grievous bodily harm.[Blomfield 2007] As expected from a Soviet boss, the ads for
Yanukovych and his party were uninspired. They “featured Yanukovych lecturing
to the camera, as if gleaned from a Communist-era newscast.”[Levy 2007b]
In the 2004
presidential campaign, the real Yanukovych was on display: a man with the
mentality of a political boss in an autocratic political system, a friend of
Russia, and a man with cynical values common among kleptomaniac political
leaders in many other countries formed out of the Soviet Union.
Enter Paul Manafort
Manafort
began his work as a political consultant for Yanukovych and the Regions party
in 2005. He was brought to Ukraine by one of the oligarchs, a steel and coal
tycoon by the name of Rinat Akhmetov, to help him improve his image [Page 2006;
Boudreaux 2010]. He was soon thereafter engaged to assist Akhmetov’s favorite
politician and his party to recover from their 2004 disaster.
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Viktor Yanukovych (left) and Paul Manafort
Click here for Source |
Manafort is
the type of guy you have seen if you have spent any time around politics and
the politically powerful. He is one of the
slick guys in fancy suits whispering something obviously significant to someone
who looks important. He is one of the heavy-lidded, tight-lipped behind-the-scenes political
operators, the political pros, who make a very good living operating in the shady
nooks and crannies of democracy. And for many years, Paul Manafort was among
the most successful of them, assisting in the presidential campaigns of Ronald
Reagan, Bush the first, and Bob Dole. He also worked in the White House for
President Ford in the 1970s.
According to
a recent Politico article, Manafort
was a “famously discreet operative” who was a principal in two high-powered
political consulting firms. The first firm was Black, Manafort, and Stone,
founded in 1982, with associates such as Lee Atwater. It had a lobbying arm,
pushing the interests of clients such as Bethlehem Steel and the Tobacco
Institute; also it provided campaign assistance to conservative Republicans
such as Phil Gramm and Jesse Helms. This firm was high-flying and hard-charging
in the 80’s and early 90’s when a Republican president was in office. It merged
with another in 1996. [Burns and Haberman 2014; Edsall 1985; A Political Power
Broker, 1987]
Before it
merged, the firm was criticized for its consulting work for foreign clients such
as Ferdinand Marcos. Also, Manafort, a
principal of the firm, was showered with negative publicity in the late 80’s
for using his connections at the Department of Housing and Urban Development to
help a client obtain $43 million for a questionable project, the rehabilitation
of dilapidated housing in Seabrook, New Jersey. [Shenon 1989]
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| Young Manafort (left), Lee Atwater (right) |
After Black,
Manafort, and Stone disappeared in a merger, Manafort became the principal in
another lobbying and political campaign firm. The other principal was Rick
Davis, who had been the deputy campaign manager for Bob Doyle’s 1996
presidential campaign. The new firm, Davis Manafort, had both lobbying and
political campaign accounts. In the middle of 2008, Rick Davis became campaign
manager for John McCain. [Meier 2008]
Apparently, the firm, though still a legal entity, has not been
functioning in recent years. [Burns and Haberman 2014]
While still
managing his political consulting firm, Manafort was a campaign consultant for
Yanukovych and the Regions Party during the 2006 and 2007 parliamentary
elections in which the party won a plurality of seats each year. He also was a
Yanukovych adviser in the 2010 presidential election, which Yanukovych won. One
Russian newspaper estimated that he had been paid a million dollars for his
work from 2005 through 2007.[Khmara 2007 ] In a recent Politico article, a former associate of Manafort estimated that earnings for
his work with Yanukovych and his party “ran into seven figures over several years.” [Burns
and Haberman 2014]
Yanukovych’s Makeover
What did Manafort
do for Yanukovych to earn these large payments?
He worked his public relations magic to make the Soviet-style politician
a new man – or at least to appear to be a new man. He softened Yanukovych’s
image and made his acceptable to a wider range Ukrainian citizens. He created
an image for a man and a party that helped them take power in Ukraine.
According to Burns
and Haberman [2014], Manafort’s role in Ukrainian elections from 2006 to 2010
was to shape Yanukovych’s big-picture messaging; coach him to speak in punchy,
American-style sound bites; and manage teams of consultants and attorneys. Writing
about the 2006 parliamentary elections, Jeremy Page [2006] described in The Australian the influence of the American
“spin doctors” on Yanukovych:
[T]heir
influence is unmistakable. He [Yanukovych] has abandoned the funereal black
suits and white shirts he wore for the 2004 campaign in favour of blue or grey
suits with co-ordinated shirts and ties.
He
has given up addressing supporters in prison slang, and now speaks in Ukrainian
as well as Russian. His wife, who accused Mr Yushchenko's supporters of being
high on ''psychotropic'' oranges, has been conspicuously silent.
He
still says that he opposes joining NATO, but now backs EU integration.
''Ukraine
must become a bridge between Russia and Europe'', is his new catchphrase. But
importantly, he has made between 40 and 50 trips around Ukraine since January,
meeting tens of thousands of voters.
''He's
still the same guy, one Western diplomat said, ''but he is behaving like a real
politician.''
A Ukrainian political
observer wrote about the impact of “political mercenaries” in Ukraine,
describing the changes in Yanukovych’s following the 2004 debacle:
Already leading up to
and after Ukraine’s 2006 parliamentary election, journalists noticed how
Yanukovych’s mannerisms changed. He was increasingly well dressed in
conservatively political attire, well groomed and polished. He smiled warmly
and spoke on message although he never got rid of his malapropisms….All the
buffing and polishing was attributed to Manafort. [Rachkevych 2012]
Clifford Levy
[2007b] covered Yanukovych’s 2007 election campaign for the International Herald Tribune and New York Times. He observed that
Yanukovych was showing “a deft new touch that has helped transform him from
arch-villain of the Orange Revolution (at least in the eyes of the West) to
arguably the country's most popular politician.” Levy [2007b] wrote that
Yanukovych presented himself as “an anticorruption reformer who wanted to move
Ukraine closer to the west.” [IHT 2007] He
continued:
Yanukovich
still has the bulk of a retired linebacker, but he has largely shed the coarse
mannerisms that he picked up as an ex-convict turned party boss in the
political free-for-all after the Soviet Union's demise.
On
the stump this week, Yanukovich has repeatedly declared that he is the only
politician who can bring stability to a nation weary of political turmoil.
''I
understand your dreams,'' he told supporters at a rally, before echoing a line
from former President Bill Clinton. ''I feel your pain, and I share in your
desire to make Ukraine a land of opportunity.''
He
added, ''I want you to know who I am, not who my opponents try to say that I
am.''
The
changes that the American consultants bring to a relatively unsophisticated
political culture can be seen in Yanukovich's television commercials…. they
have a buoyant American sensibility, with Yanukovich strolling through sunny
neighborhoods, surrounded by smiling Ukrainians of all ages. [IHT 2007]
A British reporter covering the 2007 Ukrainian elections for The Daily Telegraph, a London paper, described the “US-style spin” evident
in the Kanukovych campaign:
Three
years after his attempt to steal the presidency in the elections that prompted
Ukraine's pro-Western Orange Revolution, Mr Yanukovych has undergone a makeover
as dramatic as the revival of his political fortunes
…the
once avowedly pro-Russian prime minister has ditched the bouffant hairstyle
favoured by Soviet apparatchiks, taken to playing tennis with the US
ambassador, begun speaking in Ukrainian rather than Russian and has even
pledged to take his country into the European Union.
Even
his past has been spun. Twice convicted as a teenager for armed robbery and
grievous bodily harm, the old Yanukovych had the KGB expunge his criminal
record and refused to discuss it in public.
Today,
the new Yanukovych is happy to talk about his past, telling questioners about
growing up in a broken family. He was not a criminal, he insists, but a victim
of poverty. [Blomfield 2007]
In a story
about the 2010 presidential campaign, Levy again noted the Western-type
campaign and behavior of Yanukovych. He
wrote:
Under
the tutelage of an American political consultant with ties to Senator John
McCain [Manafort], Mr Yanukovych has put the Orange Revolution on trial in
recent weeks. He has echoed another American politician, by asking Ukrainians
whether they feel better off now than they did five years ago.
“Do
we want to keep living as we have lived these five years?” he asked. “When you
know the answer to that, then you will know how to vote.”
….
Mr.
Manafort’s influence was apparent on Mr. Yanukovych’s visit this week in
Dneprodzerzhinsk. His old style tended toward rambling speeches that seemed
more suited for Politburo meeting than a campaign rally. But throughout his
day, he spoke in short, crisp sentences that rarely strayed from this theme of
the Orange Revolution’s failures.
Most
journalists writing about the 2006, 2007, and 2010 Ukrainian elections give
great credit to Manafort for the victories of Yanukovych and the Party of the
Regions. A confidant of Yanukovych, a member of parliament by the name of Boris
Kolesnikov, told a Financial Times reporter
that Manafort’s team had made “a major impact” on the strategy and style of the
“the rough-spoken former truck driver.” [Olearchyk 2010] A former Manafort partner gave him even more
credit for the electoral successes: “Yanukovych came to power through a series
of elections and would have never won without Manafort’s council.” [Burns and
Haberman 2014]
Of course,
the political campaigns in Ukraine did not take place in a vacuum, and the
failures of the Orange Revolution, and the unpopularity of its leaders,
contributed to Yanukovych’s successes, as did unwavering support of many
Russian-speaking Ukrainian’s living in the Eastern part of the country.
Nevertheless, Manafort made it possible for Yanukovych and his party to take
advantage of the situation by presenting a new, softer, modern image – dressing
the corrupt Soviet autocrat is the fine clothes of an honest democrat.
Why Did Manafort Help Yanukovych?
Why did
Manafort, a conservative Republican, agree to help a candidate with, at best,
questionable ethics, morals, and values (evidenced by efforts to steal the 2004
presidential election) and an orientation toward Russia? Unsurprisingly, he has
never explained his motives, but several of his former colleagues think that
Manafort “truly believed in the now-deposed politician’s capabilities as a
leader and doubted that his competitors – widely seen as more pro-western – had
more productive aspirations for the country.” In their piece, Burns and
Haberman [2014] refer to the Manafort-Yanukovych relationship as a “political love
connection” and say the two developed a “real and close relationship.”
An American ad
man whom Manafort brought in to help with the 2010 Ukrainian presidential campaign
told Burns and Haberman [2014] that Manafort was “obsessively focused on the
race.” He is quoted as saying, “There was no hour of the day or night when he
was not available to respond to an email.” Another Manafort friend described
his drive in this election as “maniacal.” Apparently the work for Yanukovych was more than simply "another job" to him.
Manafort
rarely spoke to the press about his political work in Ukraine (or anywhere
else), but he did talk briefly to Levy in 2007:
Manafort … said Thursday that he would not discuss his advice to
Yanukovich or how much he is being paid. But Manafort said he believes that the prime minister is an
outstanding leader who has been badly misunderstood.
''The
West has not been willing to move beyond the Cold War mentality and to see this
man and the outreach that he has extended,' said Manafort, 58, who favors monogrammed dress shirts and has the
looks of a network anchorman.
….
Hoping
to undercut Yanukovich’s more polished campaign, his opponents have charged
that oligarchs like Akhmetov are simply buying a better candidate.
“They
are just packaging him in a new cover and educating him in some techniques to
use,” said Hryhoriy Nemyria, a Tymoshecko adviser. “It’s the same Soviet and
post-Soviet political culture, which always favors a monopoly of political
power, hatred of the political opposition and eternal distrust of the media and
civil society. This has not disappeared.”
Manafort
said such criticism was unfair, and he emphasized that his vision for Ukraine
extended far beyond Sunday.
''I
am not here just for the election,'' he said. ''I am trying to play a
constructive role in developing a democracy. I am helping to build a political
party.'' [Levy 2007]
In 2010, he
spoke briefly again with Levy, who was covering the Ukrainian presidential election
for the New York Times. He provided, essentially, a talking-point
sound bit:
Mr.
Manafort declined to discuss in detail his relationship with Mr. Yanukovych,
but he acknowledged that he was pursuing a classic anti-incumbent strategy.
“Despite
the great expectations from the Orange campaign promises of five years ago, the
world and the people of Ukraine see that Tymoshenko has failed,” Mr. Manafort said. [Levy
2010]
He gave
another interview to a Wall
Street Journal reporter [Boudreaux 2010], talking about the successful tactics of the
Yanukovych campaign. He said, “Tymoshenko tried to portray herself as the
leader of democratic forces. Yanukovych ran as the leader of the forces of
change. He kept the focus of that message, on the fact she’d had her chance and
botched the job. And he made that case.”
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Yulia Tymoshenko, Yanukovych's main political opponent, in prison, 2011
Source |
Manafort after Yanukovych
According to Burns
and Haberman [2014], Manafort became an advisor to Yanukovych after he was
elected president of Ukraine in 2010. He also became involved in business
projects in Eastern Europe.
At this time,
Manafort’s current work and location are unknown. Burns and Haberman [2014] reported
that in early March, not long after Yanukovych abandoned his opulent multi-million dollar
mansion to flee Ukraine, Manafort’s former colleagues did not know his
whereabouts, and he did not respond to messages sent to half a dozen email
accounts linked to him, nor did he answer calls to phone numbers at his
Virginia and Florida addresses. However, a couple of March twitter messages -- true or not -- placed Manafort in an expensive hotel in Kiev.
In one of his
few newspaper interviews after starting his work in Ukraine, Manafort said that in his work there he wanted to “play a constructive role in developing a
democracy.” To do so, he helped a corrupt thug take power,
thereby steering a nation into a crisis that not only hurts its citizens, but
threatens to destabilize the world. Manafort’s actions in Ukraine suggest that
where ever he is and whatever he is doing now, he is making lots of money, justifying
his work in lofty phrases, and showing no concern for its consequences.
Sources
“A Political
Power Broker.” 1989. New York Times,
June 21, p. A19.
Blomfield,
Adrian. 2007. “Commentary: Ukraine’s prime minister turns to US-style spin.” The Daily Telegraph (London), September
29, p. 18.
Edsall, Thomas.
1985. “Partners in Political PR Firm Typify Republican New Breed.” Washington Post, April 7, p. A8.
Levy,
Clifford. 2007b. “Image repair perks up Ukrainian’s prospects; American aids a
once-reviled leader.” International
Herald Tribune, Oct 1, p. 1.
Levy, Clifford.
2010. “Toppled in Ukraine but nearing a comeback.” New York Times. January 15, p. A4.
Meier, Barry.
2008. “In McCain Campaign, a Lobbying Labyrinth.” New York Times, May 25, p. 22.
Olearchyk,
Roman. 2010. “U.S. political advisers add polish to Ukraine election
candidates.” Financial Times (U.S.
edition), January 28, p. 5.
Page, Jeremy.
2006. “American spin doctors turn Ukraine’s Orange Revolution into Blue.” The Australian, March 29, p. 10.
Shenon.
Philip. 1989. “Bush consultant peddled influence at H.U.D., he says.” New York Times, June 21, p. A1.
