Svitlana Zalishchuk (’11), an alumna of the Draper Hills Summer Fellow Program (DHSFP) at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law reflects on the challenges and motives behind her decision to run for public office in Ukraine. Amidst a transitional moment in her country’s history, Zalishchuk won a seat in Ukraine’s Parliament alongside DHSFP alumni Sergii Leshchenko ('13) and Mustafa Nayyem ('14). Before joining government, Zalishchuk led the Ukrainian NGO, Centre UA, which works to reassert citizens' influence on politics and restore freedom of speech in Ukraine.

1) What are the top challenges Ukraine faces today?

Ukraine is currently confronted with challenges on two fronts. The first is in the east of the country – the war with Russia. The second challenge is with the old system of government against corrupt and rotten institutions ­­ both struggles are an attempt to break up with Ukraine’s Soviet past.

There is an essential interdependence between these two battles. With the war in Donbass (in the east of Ukraine) it is much more difficult to implement the reforms. At the same time, without reforms it is impossible to win the war in the East.

In the end, Putin’s aim is not to control two Ukrainian regions, but to make the European idea a failed idea in Ukraine. The reunion of the Ukrainian territories in the long-term will be based on the people’s wish to live better lives in a free and democratic European country. Reforms are the most powerful weapon against this post-Soviet front.

2) How has civil society responded to the new leadership under President Petro Poroshenko?

President Petro Poroshenko was elected with more than 50 percent support of the voters. But to be a leader of a country, which has a military conflict with one of the biggest powers in the world and is going through one of the most difficult economic crises since its independence, is a monumental task.

Ukrainian society has high expectations of the new president, government and parliament – institutions that represent the shift of the political elites after the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv. But it is almost impossible to meet these expectations. The country’s decision to move toward democratic development has been made at the expense of thousands of Ukrainian lives.

Currently, the government has been facing harsh criticism for countless mistakes, a slow reform process, and lack of effort to combat corruption. Society continues to live through unprecedented self-organization. Groups of volunteers have formed across the country to perform various tasks that the state sometimes is unable to execute - such as the creation of volunteer battalions, the financing of the army, and the construction of housing for refugees. 

Still, it is a bit early to answer this question. Society is still waiting for the results of this leadership: reforms and a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

3) What challenges do you face, currently, as a member of parliament? What kind of changes do you hope to implement in your current role?

The biggest challenge is to justify people’s expectations that a new generation in politics will be able to change the country. People need to realize that real changes do not come with new faces in the government - and not even with newly adopted bills - but with well-functioning institutions. Building these will take time.

Nevertheless, we have to show that reforms are possible even in times of military conflict and economic crisis. New anti-corruption policies and measures; judicial and police reform; deregulation; constitutional reform that decentralizes the country to allow more power to local communities – these are the first steps of a long journey toward our European goal.

In the long-term, politicians with roots tracing back to the Euromaidan protests have to build their political identities alongside new political parties. The legacy of the Euromaidan protests has to be institutionalized.

4) What prompted you to run for parliament? How would you describe the transition from a journalist to politician?

Having experienced censorship for many years in Ukraine, we have chosen to fight for the freedom of speech. This meant doing a little more outside the normal responsibilities of a journalist.

We have been advocating for the Freedom of Information Bill for five years. We were demanding reform in the media sphere for ten. We were fighting against corruption not only by writing about it, but also by initiating nation-wide civic campaigns. We were on the frontline of both revolutions – Orange in 2004 and Euromaidan in 2014. After this, pursuing a career in politics seemed like a logical next step to transform this fight into a constructive continuation of reforms.

5) How has the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program contributed – if at all- towards your new role in government?

One of the most important experiences from the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program was the recalibration and transformation of my local way of thinking into a global way of thinking. I was able to move from only seeing a national (Ukrainian) perspective on the problems with democratic and economic reforms to seeing an understanding of how all these challenges have been faced by many countries in the world.

6) Do you have any advice for alumni members who are seeking to run for office?

I have three personal conclusions. First, politics is a team game. It is important to build or find a circle of trustworthy and like-minded people. Second, goal-oriented strategy is essential for long-term political journeys. And finally, cooperation with civil society, continuous engagement with voters and communication with people is crucial.

Pursuing a career in politics was a difficult decision for my friends and I. But life proved that there are no right decisions. You make the decisions and then you make them right.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of Russia’s most visible opposition figures, blasted the current regime and expressed his vision and hope for a new “open Russia” during a visit to Stanford during his first appearance at an American university since his release from prison in 2013. 

“Russia is not going to be able to avoid this transition period,” said Khodorkovsky, a former political prisoner of Vladimir Putin’s regime who is now living in exile in Switzerland. “And the task of this transition period is to hold fair elections.”

President Putin has created a war – not economic growth, he said. And Russia is paying for the loss of freedom inside the country and the destruction of democratic institutions with the lives of soldiers and volunteers dying in Ukraine. Even economists loyal to the Kremlin are predicting no growth for the next 10 years, he said, speaking through an interpreter.

“I’m quite confident that if there were honest elections in Russia today, then the people who would come to power would be far more left-leaning than I am,” he said. “The people in power now are intentionally dragging the people back into the Middle Ages.”

Mikhail Khodorkovsky's talk entitled “Russia: Back to the Future” called upon members of the Russian diaspora to help reshape their country’s future.

Khodorkovsky addressed a crowd of about 600 people during an April 13 event hosted by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. The Russian oil magnate had funded opposition parties before his arrest in 2003. Many, including FSI Director Michael McFaul, believed Khodorkovsky’s conviction and 10-year imprisonment for tax evasion and money-laundering charges were politically motivated.

McFaul, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia between 2012 and 2014, recalled how the Obama administration debated theories on why Khodorkovsky was released after a presidential pardon in December 2013.

“One theory is that Putin was ready to release you because he thought you would come out a broken man,” McFaul said. “And we have witnessed today that that theory was incorrect.”

Khodorkovsky told the Stanford audience “the regime will fall as the result of internal problems and civil disobedience.”

The nation’s economic problems stemming from “capital flight, brain drain and a decline in entrepreneurial activity” will deepen, he said, and “people will gradually realize that the only thing conformism will lead to is un-freedom, poverty, and loss of self-dignity.”

Khodorkovsky launched Open Russia, a civil society movement, in 2014 following his prison release. Its goal, he said, is to help establish a democratic structure of power in Russia.

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The opposition movement has struggled in its campaign, however, against a nationalistic fervor following the annexation of Ukraine’s semi­autonomous Crimean region last year.

“We often hear that the opposition in Russia doesn’t stand a chance, that this is just an impossible dream,” Khodorkovsky said. “But I bring to your attention that the entire history of humanity was based entirely on this type of dream,” he said, citing Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King.

“The Russia we dream of seeing is completely different,” he said. “It’s a country of clean streets; of successful, smiling, self-confident people; people who have a job they love and who don’t have to struggle for existence day in and day out.”

“It’s a country where, if you obey the law, you need not be afraid of anybody — not a prosecutor, not a judge, not the governor, not the president.  Not even the president of Chechnya,” he continued, drawing claps from the audience.

Khodorkovsky’s vision is for Russia to have an independent judiciary and an influential parliament.

In a nod to Stanford and Silicon Valley, Khodorkovsky said that with a regime change, Russia would need to quickly bring the country out from isolation with the help of people, capital and technologies.

“This is the reason why I’m here. You are the leaders of today’s technological world,” he said. “Much of what has already changed our life and will continue to change it going forward is being created right here.”

“We in Russia believe you aren’t going to start helping our authoritarian regime suffocate the opposition,” he added. “You’re not going to start passing them information and technologies that help record our conversations in the net, break into correspondence, or set up barriers.”

“On the contrary, you are going to help us to bring people the truth, to self-organize on top of the established prohibitions.”

May Wong is a freelance writer. 

Photos by Rod Searcey.

The transcript of Khodorkovsky's address is available here in English and Russian. 

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In this week's Politico, David Remnick has written a lengthy piece about former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul's rocky tenure in Moscow, as Vladir Putin came back into power as president and U.S.-Russia relations began to deteriorate.

Michael A. McFaul, a FSI senior fellow and CISAC affiliated faculty member, writes in this Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law that while the U.S. and Europe maintain pressure on Putin through sanctions, the West also needs to get serious about strengthening Ukraine.

"So far, Ukrainians have done more to thwart Mr. Putin than any action by outside powers," says McFaul. "The West can likewise do more to help the Kiev government win hearts and minds in eastern Ukraine."

And in a Politico magazine piece by McFaul earlier this week, he argues that Putin today sees a path to glory that does not involve democratic governance and ignores international norms.

"Putin dreams of comparisons with Peter the Great or the Catherine the Great," writes McFaul, who was ambassador in Moscow from January 2012 until this February, when he returned to Stanford as a political science professor at FSI's New Yorker.

"But if we judge him by his ability to achieve even his own stated goals, his record is not so great. He has achieved some objectives aimed at restoring Russia to the position of global greatness he believes it deserves, but failed at achieving those most important to him. And the future looks even darker."

Former President George W. Bush met with Stanford students for an hourlong conversation that touched on many of the defining moments and policies of his presidency.

In a relaxed and sometimes self-deprecating exchange on May 5, Bush talked about the limits of congressional power and his relationships and personal diplomacy with other world leaders. His tone was more serious when discussing what he described as universal desires for freedom, his military strategies following 9/11, and his commitment to addressing Africa’s HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, director of the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, moderated the session. Stanford President John Hennessy and Condoleezza Rice – Bush’s secretary of state and national security adviser who has returned to teaching political science and business at Stanford – joined the conversation.

"FSI has a terrific track record of convening leaders at Stanford, from the head of the International Monetary Fund to prime ministers and presidents,” Cuéllar said. “On this occasion, we wanted our students to have an opportunity for a candid conversation with one of the key policymakers of the early 21^st century, and we think such experiences will further prepare them for leadership in a complex world."

About 30 students were invited to the session at Encina Hall, but they didn’t know they were meeting Bush until the 43^rd president walked into the room.

“I suspect he misses this sort of engagement,” said Gregory Schweizer, a second-year law school student who was part of the discussion that also covered immigration reform, national education policies and the Edward Snowden affair.

“The media always portrays him as being disengaged from current affairs,” Schweizer said. “But I’m impressed with how interested and engaged he still is.”

Along with representatives from Stanford Law School, other students were invited from the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies. Honors students from FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law also joined the conversation.

Bush’s visit was arranged with the help of  Brad Freeman, a former university trustee and Ronald Spogli, who is currently on Stanford's board of trustees. Freeman and Spogli are longtime friends of the former president and philanthropists who donated a naming gift to FSI in 2005. Bush appointed Spogli as ambassador to Italy in 2005 and as ambassador to San Marino a year later. 

Stanford has a tradition of hosting current and former heads of state, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev – both of whom visited in 2010.