Democratic Breakthroughs and Revolutions in Five Post-Communist ...

23Dealing with the previous regime has proven difficult in many transitioncountries, whether Spain following Franco, Chile following Augusto Pinochet orGreece after the military junta. Most post-communist states never undertook lustrationor condemned communism. In most CIS states and some central European states theformer communist elites continue to rule their countries after the collapse of theUSSR. Indeed, many senior leaders of democratic oppositions (i.e. Saakashvili,Yushchenko) were themselves former regime officials. Dealing with the inherited pasthas pre-occupied and divided the democratic opposition in Serbia, Croatia andUkraine, but not in Slovakia and Georgia. The crimes and abuse of office committedby Meciar and Shevardnadze pale in comparison to those committed by Croatian,Serbian and Ukrainian leaders.Shevardnadze and Kuchma were granted immunity during their democraticrevolutions. This immunity deal would seem to have been extended to other Kuchmaera officials and no senior official has been put on trial. As Mason writes aboutGeorgia, ‘Arresting officials of the old regime and their cronies has been a hallmarkof Saakashvili’s tenure’. 16 Issues that divided the Orange Revolution coalition aftercoming to power rested over dealing with past abuse of office, the organizers of themurder of Gongadze, election fraud and whether to re-privatise enterprises fromoligarchs. Many members of Our Ukraine, including Yushchenko, had been loyal toKuchma for seven of his ten years in office until 2001 and proved unwilling to openinvestigations of former Kuchma regime officials. The unwillingness to criminallycharge the organizers of Gongadze’s murder and election fraud rests on secretprovisions of immunity granted during round table negotiations in the OrangeRevolution. The issue of re-privatization divided Our Ukraine, which opposed thesteps, and the Tymoshenko bloc, which supported such a policy. If re-privatization