此篇分析，可以做為台灣民主轉型的借鏡，東歐新興民主國家，同樣也遇到舊勢力反撲難以順利完成的局面，其中主要的因素是來自「經濟力量」仍掌握在舊勢力共產黨手中，台灣也很值得思考。以下：
在橘色革命的狂喜後，烏克蘭今天陷入政治惡鬥及僵局，西方支持在顏色革命中取得勝利的總統Yushchenko在政治現實的壓力下，不得不任命其死對頭，俄國支持的反對黨領袖Yanukovich，自一九八九年東歐脫離蘇聯紛紛獨立後，可以說，許多國家和烏克蘭一樣，革命仍未完成。波蘭、斯洛維亞、捷克、波羅的海三小國等，都面臨類似的考驗。這些國家加入歐盟時，大都將重心放在市場經濟的條件上，雖然歐盟也有政治性條件，但是無法如經濟性那麼清楚設定。這些政治條件近來倍受挑戰。
政治結構的問題，最主要是沒有獨立的政治組織，這必須朔自一九八九年共產黨垮台之際，當共產黨菁英嗅到政治崩盤的前夕，立即將所有的資源及力量轉移到經濟實力上，接著，在所有國營事業私有化的過程中，這些共產黨菁英掌握了這些經濟資源，納為己有，並且迅速再集結，接下來用這些經濟力量重新取得政治力量。因此，現在大家可以看到在後共黨國家，前共產黨的勢力為什麼又迅速再竄起，成為左右政治的力量。所以，正是這些新興民主國家的民主一直處於震盪不安的狀態之主因。這樣的演變導致許多民眾對政黨仍存有相當負面的印象。主張掃除共產黨餘孽及腐敗的政黨一再獲得人民肯定，但也同時引來更多的政治鬥爭及壓迫、鎮壓，如同共產黨時代，專家擔心，最終會讓人民對選舉失去信心。果真如此，則東歐的民主革命或民主轉型則仍未能完成，歐洲的真正整合則也將更為困難。
Post-revolution nations stand on shaky ground
By Judy Dempsey International Herald Tribune
Published: August 8, 2006
On a balmy afternoon last month, academics and politicians gathered in the Livadia Palace in Yalta. It was here, in the summer residence of the czars, that the future of Europe was decided more than 60 years ago when Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt divided Europe into spheres of Western and Soviet influence.
At this year’s gathering, the experts stewed over how the tremendous energy unleashed by the Orange Revolution in December 2004 had degenerated into bitter infighting and political deadlock in Ukraine. The meeting was held under the auspices of Yalta European Strategy, an international network supporting Ukrainian membership in the European Union. Last week, the leader of the Orange Revolution, President Viktor Yushchenko, had the ignominious task of appointing as prime minister his archrival, Viktor Yanukovich, who is backed by Russia.
But the more the participants pondered what had gone wrong in Kiev, the more talk veered toward the eight former Warsaw Pact allies of Ukraine that joined the European Union on May 1, 2004. Despite the radical changes that have swept Eastern Europe since 1989, there was a sense that, as in Ukraine, the revolution is incomplete.
In Poland, the Kaczynski twins - Lech is president and Jaroslaw is prime minister - yearn to complete that revolution. Their path, however, is controversial: They aim to build a new Polish republic independent of what they see as overly liberal values imposed by the EU. Their conservative and nationalist coalition government is seeking to reintroduce the death penalty, restrict the rights of homosexuals, increase the state’s role in the economy, and strengthen the role of the Roman Catholic Church. Above all, the twins want to obliterate the Communist past.
Slovakia, where a Socialist-led government was sworn in last week, is causing concern, too. Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government includes the xenophobic National Party, led by Jan Slota, and the nationalist Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, led by Vladimir Meciar. While in office in the 1990s, Meciar censored the news media, intimidated the opposition, and did nothing to rid the economy of corruption and organized crime.
No wonder NATO and the EU shunned Slovakia until 1998, when voters removed Meciar by electing Mikulas Dzurinda, whose reform program brought the country into both organizations in 2004. Yet although Slovakia has been praised for its economic renewal, voters opted last month for the Socialists and nationalists who have pledged to slow change. Slota has also threatened to curb the rights of ethnic Hungarians and the Roma.
In the Czech Republic, where governments have lurched from one corruption scandal to another, paralysis has reigned since parliamentary elections two months ago. The conservatives and Socialists won the same number of seats. Although they support the same policies, they cannot bring themselves to establish a grand coalition.
In Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, governments have come and gone with almost annual regularity. Last month, the Lithuanian government resigned over a corruption case. In Bulgaria and Romania, which hope to join the EU on Jan. 1, matters are far worse. Their judiciaries are plagued by political interference and corruption, and particularly in Bulgaria, the trafficking of human beings and drugs persists.
Some of Eastern Europe’s malaise results from weak political traditions. The period of democracy between the two world wars was all too brief. Added to this is the impact of the economy. While recording high growth compared with older EU states, the new members are struggling with joblessness. Poland’s unemployment rate last year was 18 percent and Slovakia’s 16 percent, said Anders Aslund, senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics in Washington.
Then there is the way these countries negotiated their entry into the EU. Both sides focused on creating market economies and conforming with the EU’s 80,000 pages of legislation. Scant attention was paid to political institutions, particularly to creating independent judiciaries, independent civil services and strong political parties.
”The EU did set political criteria, but they were vague,” said Pawel Swieboda, director of demosEuropa, an independent research center in Warsaw, and a former director of the European Department of the Polish Foreign Ministry. ”While we were negotiating our entry into the EU, there was tremendous discipline. That discipline has now gone.”
But not all the blame lies with weak political traditions or with Brussels. The failure to build independent political institutions goes back to the fall of the Communist regimes in 1989. When their visible structures of power collapsed, Communist elites quickly and discreetly moved their power base to the economy. During the chaotic phase of privatization, urged on by Western consultants as the fastest way to transform the centralized economies, these former officials grabbed hold of the new levers of power.
”During those rapid privatizations, the new Communist managers often seized control,” said George Schöpflin, a political science professor who is a European Parliament legislator for Hungary’s opposition party Fidesz. ”Later, they converted their economic power back into political power.”
Over time, as privatization moved forward, these new post-Communist enterprise managers acquired huge wealth. With their new money, they revamped the ex-Communist parties, giving them a new image and name. Particularly in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia, the enterprise managers of the 1990s have become party bosses of the 21st century.
This may explain why the democracies in these countries still seem shaky. In many of these countries, Schöpflin said, ”there exist still-undigested chunks of the old Communist system.” This has brought public disenchantment toward political parties, which across Eastern Europe, Swieboda said, are seen as ”dodgy, suspicious.”
Against this background, it is easy to understand why the Kaczynski twins in Poland and the nationalists in Slovakia have built their success on promises to cleanse the system of Communist corruption. Yet there are fears that their zeal will lead to the politics of revenge, reminiscent of purges during the Communist era, when those who did not support the authorities were considered politically suspect and dismissed.
If so, no progress will be made toward building an independent and efficient civil service or an impartial judicial system. It will be just a matter of time, too, before voters turn away from their current set of leaders and lose all confidence in the virtue of elections. If so, the revolutions of Eastern Europe will remain as unfinished as the one in Ukraine, the democracies incomplete, and Europe’s unification fragile.
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