In the episode of Putin, Russia & the West: Democracy Threatens (first broadcast by the BBC on 26 January 2012), there was a fascinating account of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. Given how tedious our own elections can be, and how remote the Ukraine is from my daily affairs, I was somewhat surprised. Of course elections are important, but to be reminded that they can be a matter of life and death is a sobering experience for a complacent liberal who takes them for granted.
Adding to the intrigue surrounding this election was the failed assassination attempt of one of the two main candidates, Victor Yushchenko, who was poisoned with dioxin. He eventually triumphed through a repeat runoff election between him and Viktor Yanukovych, the government-supported candidate. The Ukrainian Supreme Court had called for the runoff election to be repeated because of widespread election fraud in favour of Viktor Yanukovych in the original vote.
In the programme, we see many of those involved, speaking in their own words, and footage of the events as they unfolded. Boris Gryzlov, Speaker of the Russian Parliament, was sent by Putin as Russia’s representative in the negotiations. (Interesting how Putin makes a song and dance about foreign powers “interfering” in the internal affairs of Russia, but sees no contradiction in meddling in the internal affairs of the Ukraine.) According to Yushchenko, Gryzlov kept saying: “Yes, the Ukrainian elections were not ideal. Yes, in this or that constituency there were irregularities. Yes, you can point to this or that, but we have an announced result. And we should stick with that result.”
Aleksander Kwasniewski, the president of Poland, had been called in by the outgoing president Leonid Kuchma, who desperately wanted to avoid bloodshed. According to Kwasniewski, one of the aides said: “Not more than 10% of the vote was forged.” Kwasniewski replied: “OK, put that in your constitution. If only 10% is rigged, the election is valid.”
Practically speaking, it probably doesn’t matter if a few votes are rigged. Most of us cast our vote in the knowledge that if we’d stayed in bed the result would not have been affected. Whatever the practical implications, an election cannot be called free and fair if there has been vote rigging, no matter how isolated. (In any case, how could you be sure of the scale of the fraud?)
Even a handful of fraudulent votes can contaminate the whole election. A few drops of wine in the sewer doesn’t harm the sewer, but a few drops of sewage in your beef bourgignon will be enough to ruin the meal. Pascal Boyer (2001:245) discusses the Contagion system, which
specifies that the source of danger is present even if it cannot be detected; that all types of contact with the source may transmit the contaminant; that the `dose’ of contaminant is irrelevant.
Boyer also discusses (153) how this system works outside its adaptive domain — that of contaminants and toxins — to facilitate the development of “strange beliefs” about touching the hand of a blacksmith or coming into contact with low-caste people. (Bruce Hood has used the idea of Fred West’s cardigan (not the real thing!) to demonstrate a widespread disgust response, which “could reflect a common supernatural belief that invisible essences can contaminate the world and connect us together” (Hood 2009:38).)
Elections are certainly outside our adaptive domain as a species, but the Contagion system, so often used to bolster prejudices against people, seems in the Ukrainian case to have reinforced the liberal norms of fairness and equal standing that are essential to a working democracy. For some who are in no danger of losing it, it’s easy to poke fun at democracy, but it’s worth remembering that it’s only recently got going in the West, its ancient origins notwithstanding. As Pinker points out (2011:279):
Southern Europe became fully democratic in the 1970s, and Eastern Europe by the early 1990s. Currently the only European country classified as an autocracy is Belarus, and all but Russia are full-fledged democracies.
No wonder that Putin was far from wholehearted in his support for Ukrainian democracy. Pinker goes on (284):
Democracy is not completely exogenous to a society; it is not a list of procedures for the workings of government from which every other good follows. It is woven into a fabric of civilized attitudes that includes, most prominently, a renunciation of political violence.
Getting back to Kuchma, he wanted to avoid violence, a close call since 40,000 miners had marched into town intent on confronting Yushchenko’s supporters. Not so long ago, political leaders in a similar situation would have simply sent in the tanks, and done whatever was necessary in the name of security. Now, the norm against shooting your own citizens seems to be spreading.
Pinker again (283):
[The Polity Project] assigns each country a democracy score from 0 to 10 based on how competitive its political process is, how openly its leader is chosen, and how many constraints are placed on the leader’s power. … So are democracies less likely to get into militarized disputes, all else held constant? The answer was a clear yes. … the Democratic Peace theory did even better than its advocates hoped.