Having announced about a year ago his intention to go into big politics, he could have expected enormous obstacles. But neither Yatseniuk, nor his friends could have imagined anything like the challenges that we would jointly face.
Challenge one: The search for a positive program
It is thanks to Yatseniuk that in this election we have an opportunity to vote positively. He has at least four clear, positive purposes. They are his industrial policy, a policy to improve the efficiency of the national agrarian sector, strong state medical and education sectors and an increase in the army’s fighting efficiency.
Every single aim anticipates an increase in the role of the state and development of state institutions. While other candidates keep promising various social boons, nobody really talks about the fact that Ukrainian state institutions are failing to fulfill the aim of their existence. Ukraine simply has no government and institutions that would take responsibility for the country’s development.
This point of the program was especially difficult for Yatseniuk to comprehend. We arrived at this simple conclusion after days and weeks of debates about the program. Yatseniuk was the first person in the team to raise the issue of building state institutions, and I personally consider it to be the main achievement of the 2010 campaign.
Challenge two: The temptation of populism
Yatseniuk’s political program provoked many controversies. I have to confess that early in the campaign I was among those who advised to not emphasize in public the complicated and often unattractive points that we had arrived to in The Front of Changes [Yatseniuk’s political party]. I thought that the campaign should use foolproof symbols and concepts of prosperity, success and a better life.
Yatseniuk persuaded me and other team members that all people should be addressed as equals, and sincerely. His argument is always simple: “I’m only 35, so how will I explain it to the voters later?”
I am roughly the same age as Yatseniuk, and am involved heavily in the campaign. I have to admit that saying the truth is one of the most difficult things for me. That’s because it’s difficult to tell people that their salaries will not grow several fold unless their productivity increases dramatically.
Challenge three: The minor candidates
By the middle of the election campaign many of Yatseniuk’s theses were openly plagiarized by other presidential candidates. Some of them used the values behind his program entitled The New Course, others used Yatseiuk’s rhetoric against him to drag away the votes of those who long new faces in politics.
It seemed that the ideas we strived so hard to develop were stolen, while our communication channels were shut. TV screens, advertising billboards and newspapers are full of clones with Yatseniuk’s theses, but he is nowhere to be found. I witnessed in the regions when people accused Yatseniuk of “not giving them attention” by staying off television. Obviously, they have no idea of the cost of such heavy presence on TV.
Challenge four: The black PR
The strongest emotions of this campaign were connected to dirty tricks, or “black PR” used against us. I cannot say they threw Yatseniuk off his balance, but one could hear strong language from him in this regard. This is especially true about polls.
For example, in October, we commissioned a private poll of 12,000 respondents. In the very same month the public pseudo-sociologists gave us half the rating we really had. In December the tendency persisted and, before the winter holidays, manipulations became outrageous. Initially, Yatseniuk paid a lot of attention to it, but eventually started to joke about it.
Sometimes, he would start the morning with a question: “So, what’s our rating now, is it in the minus yet?”
There is nothing unusual in that a 35-year-old politician remains optimistic. What’s unusual is the list of Yatseniuk’s achievements in top government jobs, including parliament speaker, foreign minister, and chief of the national bank. Thanks to his National Bank management during the 2004 crisis none of the Ukrainian depositors suffered, and this shows me his vast potential and decency. Yatseniuk is also one of the few candidates who freely speaks English.
I like to believe that elections – like a confession – are deeply personal and have to be honest. By lying to yourself in the voting booth, making compromises with your own conscience, and voting without faith in the candidate but out of fear of changes, a person abuses themselves and undermines their own future. I hope Ukraine will vote for something it really believes in, for its future.
Andriy Pyshny, PhD, is deputy head of the Front of Changes political party. He has previously worked as first deputy chief of the board of directors of Oshchadbank, deputy head of Ukreximbank, and deputy head of the president’s State Security and Defense Council.
