You're reading: Communists’ populist rhetoric does not match their actions

Ukraine’s oldest and, to many, odious Communist Party is once again on the rise.

A recent poll
conducted by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology shows support
for communists at 10 percent
. If that translates into votes, the
Communist Party could add to their 26-seat faction in the
450-seat legislature after the votes are counted in the Oct. 28
parliamentary election.

The party is also
more visible, recently launching an advertising campaign that
recycles some of their Soviet-era slogans about social justice and
the vices of capitalism.

However, the populist
rhetoric shows the wide gap between the communists’ public
statements and their private lifestyles.

A tax for the rich’

Taking from the rich and
giving to the poor is a key slogan. They say they favor luxury taxes,
yet recently refused to vote in favor a luxury tax draft law proposed
by the government. Instead, the Communists criticized the
government’s bill as unworkable and said their version is more
comprehensive.

However, the tax would hit
billionaires and millionaires, and some of these could well be
Communists, something the party’s members don’t want to mention.

The Ukrainska Pravda news
website exposed Yuriy Gaydayev, lawmaker in the Communist Party
faction, who was photographed last December using an expensive
Porsche Cayenne, a vehicle that sells for at least $100,000.

With only Hr 140,000
income in 2006, Gaydayev – who served as health minister in the
1990s – could hardly afford such car. The deputy said that his
wife, who has been in business for the last 15 years, owns it.

The longtime head of
Ukraine’s Communist Party and another luxury-car lover, Petro
Symonenko, is known for his affection to Swiss watches worth tens of
thousands of dollars.

Petro Symonenko, leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine, speaks with people during his July 19 visit to Mykolayiv Oblast. The politician is known for his love to ride expensive cars and wear luxurious watches.(www.kpu.ua)

Although proclaiming
antagonism to wealth, he also lives in three-story house in an elite
residential area outside of Kyiv, estimated to be worth $1.5 million.
Symonenko, who has never been in business and has failed to make his
income declaration public, said the house belongs to his son.

The luxury tax is one of
Symonenko’s favorite topics for public speeches at campaign
rallies, though he strangely fails to portray himself as a possible
target of such legislation.

“Their slogans are
rather populist, not concrete, amorphous – a call for struggle with
the oligarchs, and returning to the Soviet past,” said Olexiy
Haran, political science professor at Kyiv Mohyla Academy.
“Communists continue their game … They cooperate [with the
authorities] and their representatives hold leading posts, although
they criticize the authorities.”

Haran says communists know
which way the wind blows, which is why they talk about introducing,
for example, a luxury tax. “If members of Party of Regions talk
about luxury taxation that means there is no threat to them,” he
explained.

Communists say their use
of old slogans shows they are consistent.

“I don’t think that holding certain, repeated and
consistent views is bad. Quite the contrary, communists are not false
to themselves,” Oleksandr Holub, a lawmaker in the Communist Party
faction, told the Kyiv Post.

Holub says his party introduces legislation to
support its agenda, but lacks enough backing to get the measures
passed by parliament.

The corrupt belong
in prison’

This recent communist
slogan closely resembles the 2004 Orange Revolution rhetoric of
ex-President Viktor Yushchenko, who repeatedly said that “bandits
belong to prison,” but who failed miserably in his five-year term.

Like Yushchenko and his
team, communists have not only failed to bring criminals to justice,
they have allegedly been involved in various corruption scandals.

According to the Chesno
(Honest) civic movement, which aims to make election process more
transparent, at least a half-dozen lawmakers in the Communist Party
faction in the parliament are suspected of having bribed voters ahead
of the Oct. 28 election, among other infractions.

Among them is Communist
Party lawmaker Oleksandr Tkachenko, who at the beginning of 2000s
served as head of the State Procurement Chamber, which is long
accused of bid rigging. Tkachenko dismissed the allegations.

Wealthy bandits
robbed the country’

Although campaigning on
rhetoric that the rich have stolen from the poor to become richer and
avoid justice, Ukrainian communists again show a disconnect with
reality.

Having been in the
parliament for the last 20 years, longer than any other faction, the
Communist Party has rarely voted in favor of anti-corruption
legislation. To the contrary, they have voted for laws that fuel
corruption.

Among such recent examples
is the fact that Communist Party faction unanimously voted on July 4
in favor of a controversial bill on state procurement, which further
reduces competition and oversight of billions of dollars in annual
state purchases.

Besides, in November 2010,
communists supported President Viktor Yanukovych’s choice of Viktor
Pshonka as general prosecutor of Ukraine. In the last two years, the
prosecutor’s office has not succeeded much in cracking down on
corruption or prosecuting heinous crimes, but rather for persecuting
opposition politicians in dubious cases.

The communists seem to be
fine with that.

Kyiv Post staff
writer Denis Rafalsky can be reached at
[email protected]
and Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at
[email protected]