Jim Hoagland:
If they succeed in throwing the bums out of office in Kiev on Dec. 26, Ukraine's reform politicians will be doing the world an enormous service.
For a decade, Leonid Kuchma's regime has been an important cog in a loosely connected international criminal enterprise that has operated behind a cloak of national sovereignty and banking secrecy to traffic in weapons, commercial corruption and political murder.
Dismantling the Kuchma organization would help further expose the international dimension and connections of lawbreaking lawmakers who are losing ground as nations shake off the lingering inhibitions of the Cold War environment that excused official criminality in the name of ideology.
The struggle in Ukraine is important as a political confrontation between democrats and autocrats and because of the potential for secessionist battles between pro- and anti-Kremlin factions in that former Soviet republic.
But at its most fundamental level, this struggle is between organized crime as practiced by and on behalf of officeholders and a citizenry's desire for the protections and benefits of an impartial legal system.
The poisoning attempt on the life of reform candidate Viktor Yushchenko has made the criminal component of this political struggle crystal clear. The public revulsion it has created should add impetus to the quest to make rulers, national governments and international institutions accountable. From Chile to Ukraine and elsewhere, the rule of law is having a good December:
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